
tlEPDE 


4HD 
2034 
Copy 1 


HILOSOPHY 


FOR 


lWAGE-SLAVES 




“A fool in revolt is infinitely wiser than the philos^her 
forging a learned apology for his chains.*’ — KossuTH. ■ 


t Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1897, in the 
Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


SAN FRANCISCO : 

Francis-Valentine Co. Printers. sitT'Olay Stree* 
-.YS97.. 




PHILOSOPHY 

FOR 

WAGLSLAVES 

BY 

T. BERSFORD 


“A fool in revolt is infinitely wiser than the philosopher 
forging a learned apology for his chains.” — K ossuth. 



X 


Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1897, in the 
Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



SAN FRANCISCO : 

Francis-Valextine Co. Printers, 517 Clay Street 
1897 



t *• 


PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHERS. 


Philosophy is the unification of knowledge, or the 
general laws or principles of science. It embraces all 
knowledge and all science. Such is the definition of the 
word generally accepted by scientists,- but the word is 
now frequently used in connection with any particular 
one of the many sciences or branches of knowledge, such 
as the philosophy of agriculture, the philosophy of cook- 
ing, etc. 

All branches of knowledge must be studied in order 
to attain a high state of civilization, and it is evident that 
the object of all study and investigation is to turn nature 
with its many forces to the best account, to secure as 
much good as possible from it, and all the sciences and 
arts are used directly or indirectly for this purpose. 

To overcome the natural obstacles of nature, to se- 
cure the greatest amount of material wealth with the 
least expenditure of effort, and thus secure the largest 
amount of leisure time for pleasure and recreation. 

To so order our domestic and public arrangements 
as to secure the best possible health and comfort for 
the people, and to so conduct ourselves towards each 
other as to secure the most happiness and liberty pos- 
sible to society. 

These are and ought to be the most important sub- 
jects for inquiry. 

There must be certain methods and rules by which 


we can the most effectually attain this maximum of happi- 
ness and liberty, and to investigate these rules and com- 
bine them into a system is the problem that we have to 
solve; in other words, to study causes and effects and to 
adopt the best methods to secure the desired results. 

As we have had philosophers in all generations, for 
over 2,000 years, the question naturally occurs, how is it 
that in spite of all. their studies and teachings, the great 
majority of the people are poverty-stricken, wretched, 
the very reverse of happy? 

Well, thel-e are many reasons. In the first place, 
knowledge is of little value unless put to a practical use, 
philosophers may point out the way, but they cannot 
force people to take it. 

Then, so-called philosophers may purposely try to 
mislead and by trickery try to justify their possession of 
wealth and power, while others starved and slaved, or 
they may have false conceptions of what is right or 
wrong. For instance, nearly all the old philosophers be- 
lieved in chattel slavery, they had slaves themselves, and 
remember, Negro chattel slavery was only abolished in 
the United States within comparatively recent times. 
Then again, philosophers may have been afraid to ex- 
press their real sentiments through fear of the wrath of 
tyrants and powerful persons, for many a man has been 
sacrificed for daring to utter what he thought the truth, 
and many a grand volume has been consigned to the 
flames; even now, in some countries, certain books are 
confiscated by the authorities. 

Again, a philosopher may have been absolutely un- 
prejudiced, his logic correct, and his' writings still in 
existence, and within our reach, and yet, for various 


4 


reasons, the people may not have read them, and, in- 
deed, it is possible that many may have read these val- 
uable works and yet fail to comprehend the meaning in- 
tended by the author, for, unfortunately, there are very 
few authors who combine good logic and impartiality 
with the faculty of expressing their thoughts in simple 
language, and, forgetful of the fact that the people are 
not all as well educated as themselves, they very fre- 
quently use language of such intellectual density that 
only persons with leisure time, and a college education 
can discern the meaning intended. 

Owing to the fact that things are viewed from dififer- 
ent standpoints, and under so many different circum- 
stances, persons form different conceptions of phenom- 
ena and their causes, and it is the office of philosophy to 
submit conceptions to a critical analysis, to find out 
their truth; thus we make use of logic the art of reason- 
ing, but philosophers are by no means infallible, and the 
intricacies of logic are very frequently used as a means 
to mislead. Who has not heard of the skill of lawyers, 
who, when pleading are often able to convince the Court 
and jury that their clients are veritable angels, while 
subsequent events have proved them to be of the worst 
kind of scoundrels. It is the object of the lawyer to mis- 
lead, to change the appearance of things, and some- 
times he daes it so skillfully that even shrewd and ob- 
servant persons are misled. 

The same skill is exhibited by the politician, who, 
by playing upon the prejudices and passions of his con- 
stituents, and using the flimsiest kind of sophisms to con- 
ceal facts, is enabled to plunder the people, and at the 
same time secure their admiration and respect. 

5 


ON GETTING AT THE TRUTH. 


Who now shall lead us, what God shall heed us 

As we lie in the Hell our hands have made; 

For us are no rulers, but fools and befoolers. 

The great are fallen and the wise men gone. 

— Wm. Morris. 

The hollow leader but betrays the hollow dupes who 
heed him; 

The hollow critic vends his idle praise to idle fools 
who feed him. 

— Anon. 

If we reflect upon the number of influences that 
have been, and are at work, it is, after all, not so very 
wonderful that the common people are as demoralized, 
divided and confused as they are. We are surrounded 
by superstition, prejudice and oppression, and, in a so- 
cial system where the universal rule is every man for 
himself, it is not surprising that unscrupulous persons 
should endeavor to take advantage of the ignorance of 
the masses to plunder and enslave them. By years of 
habit the people have come to regard the assumption of 
the rich as the law of right and common sense; the ma- 
jority of the people do not even think upon this subject; 
they accept conditions as they find them and from in- 
fancy to old age it never seems to occur to them that 
there could possibly be any other social system. 

The thought naturally occurs to some workingmen 

6 


when they are in a reflective mood that it is strange that 
they should be born into the world d6ome'‘d"to be the 
lifelong slaves of other men, but, if they inquire what is 
the cause they are informed that it is one of nature’s pe- 
culiar,. but unalterable laws, and as the people have 
been taught from infancy up to regard certain usages and 
institutions as being fundamental they are easily misled 
and confused by sophistries, and therefore do not attrib- 
ute the effects to their true cause. 

Unfortunately the great majority of the people are 
too lazy to study for themselves the causes of the con- 
dition in which they find themselves; they passively ac- 
cept the creed to which they were born, so to speak, and 
their actions are more frequently influenced by emotion 
than by sound reasoning; we see this exemplified when 
a political orator is addressing a large crowd; the sophist 
who assumes an air of profundity and bland confidence 
and uses words of prodigious dimensions invariably in- 
spires a greater respect for his wisdom, and more con- 
fidence in his assertions than does the unassuming man 
whose more sound and practical reasoning is expressed 
in simple, homely language. It is a fact that many people 
judge principles by the appearance of the man who is ex- 
pounding them. 

If his appearance and style favorably impresses the 
crowd it lends an artificial weight to the opinions he ex- 
presses, predisposing the people to accept them idly, 
without proper reflection. A crowd likes flattery and an 
interesting address; cold, solid truths are unpalatable, and 
the man who gives them generally meets with a cold re- 
ception. Thus, a speaker has little inducement to speak 
the truth, and if he wishes to secure approbation he is 


7 


almost compelled to address the crowd, not on what it is 
to their advantage to hear, but, on what they are the 
most pleased to listen to. 

The articles and editorials in the newspapers have a 
tremendous influence in moulding the thoughts of their 
readers; opinions expressed in print acquire an addition- 
al weight; comparatively few people seem to fully realize 
the fact that newspaper comments and editorials mere- 
ly express the opinion of the editor, a man who may be, 
and very frequently is, prejudiced, or he may be the 
mere tool and mouthpiece of influential individuals or 
corporations. 

Newspapers and journals are business concerns, de- 
pendent upon cash for their existence, and it is a well- 
known fact that frequently editors dare not express their 
real opinion on various subjects even if they wished to 
do so. 

There is frequently a systematic suppression by the 
managers of newspapers of all news that would be in- 
structive or encouraging to the wage workers; so far 
from seeking to better the condition of the working 
class, the newspapers are used as a means to divide and 
confuse the people by raising false issues to divert their 
attention from the real ones, and by using ambiguous 
language and making misleading statements they make it 
trebly difficult for the common people to get at the 
truth, or form correct opinions. 

Unscrupulous journalists who are eager for sen- 
sationalism, do not hesitate to work upon the prejudices 
of the people, paving the way for war, with all its mis- 
ery and distress and perpetuating bigotry and national 
hatreds. 


8 


The clergy is also responsible to a large extent for 
the general ignorance and demoralization of the people, 
who are taught that poverty and want is a dispensation of 
God, and therefore it is wicked to envy the rich for their 
wealth; that, though the rich may seem happy, they 
really are not, and, if we practice the virtues of docility 
and submission in conjunction with economy and tem- 
perance, we will, when we die go straight to heaven and 
live happy ever after. 

It is noticeable that the clergy do not share the 
troubles and misery of the poor, they find it far nicer to 
dine with the rich and preach to the poor of the paradise 
in the glorious hereafter. 

The misleading language and statements of our writ- 
ers and speakers on social and economic questions is 
one of the principal causes of the prevailing confusion 
and ignorance of these subjects. Let us take a few 
examples. The average school book on political econ- 
omy contains numerous fallacies, and the reasoning by 
which luxury is justified is a good example of these: 

^‘Machinery economizes labor, therefore the more 
machines are increased and perfected the fewer hours of 
labor are needed to produce the necessary products. 
To diminish the hours of work means to diminish the de- 
mand for hands and to throw out of employment an in- 
creasing number of workers. In order that he may be kept 
supplied with occupation it is necessary that in propor- 
tion as actual wants are satisfied with less effort, new 
wants, i. e., luxuries, should arise to utilize those hours 
of labor which the perfecting of mechanical engines and 
technical processes has left to be disposed of. The pro- 
duction or manufacture of these luxuries gives employ- 
ment to large numbers- of men who would otherwise be 
without the means of support. It has been stated that 


9 


there are twice as many workers engaged in work caused 
by luxury and extravagance as are engaged in producing 
the necessaries of life.” 

According to this kind of reasoning we are not to 
shorten the hours of labor in proportion to the increased 
power of production, we are not to enjoy the leisure time 
which science has won for us, but, we are to be kept at 
our ceaseless drudgery by making trifles and luxuries 
which only the wealthy few can enjoy. 

Another fallacy that we find in some books on po- 
litical economy is the wage fund theory, viz., that wages 
are paid out of capital in ratio to the number of work- 
ers, that there is only a limited amount of capital to be 
divided among the workers ; if some receive more, others 
must receive less. When the workers complained of low 
wages they were told that it was of no use arguing against 
any one of the four fundamental rules of arithmetic; the 
question of wages is a question of division. If you in- 
crease wages further you trench upon capital and thus 
diminish future employment and work permanent injury 
to the laboring class. The worker was told that it was 
a matter between him and his fellows. 

At the time the wage fund theory was the most 
prominently before the people (especially in England) 
the manufacturers, merchants, etc., .were making fabu- 
lous fortunes, their profits being frequently over two 
hundred per cent. 

Now, it is obvious that wages can be increased until 
they absorb nine-tenths of the profits without increas- 
ing the price of the commodity and still leave a margin of 
' profit on the capital invested. Of course, this would re- 
duce the profits of the e.apitalists, but that would not pre- 

10 


vent them from investing their capital, for they want in- 
terest and profits, and to get them must employ wage 
workers. 

Now, wages are paid out of current production and 
not out of the capital invested. It is the prospect of profits 
which induces the employer to hire laborers and the rate 
of. wages paid the workers is not determined by the value 
of their product, but by the demand for workers, and the 
number of them available to supply the demand. If there 
are a large number of unemployed in the labor market 
wages will be low, no matter how much profit the cap- 
italists may be making. The capitalist is not content with 
five per cent or ten per cent interest on his capital, he 
will take five hundred per cent if he can get it, and will 
not increase the wages of his workers one cent unless 
forced to do so by the scarcity of workers or by their 
power through organization. 

It is the competition between workers to get em- 
ployment, and not the value of their production, that 
determines the amount to be paid as wages, and yet Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, who is reputed to be the greatest of 
modern philosophers, bases some of his arguments on 
the wage fund theory. (See his book, Man vs. State). 

Mr. Herbert Spencer in his book, ‘‘Social Statics,’" 
says : 

“As an abstract truth, we all admit that passion dis- 
torts judgment, and yet we never inquire whether our 
passions are influencing us. We all decry prejudice, yet 
all are prejudiced.” 

True, and Mr. H. Spencer is no exception, for, al- 
though in many of his books his logic seems to be mas- 
terly and faultless, yet in his articles on economics he is 


II 


inconsistent in his arguments, and prejudiced opinion is 
much more in evidence that impartial logic. He is also 
inclined to be harsh in his judgment, as the following 
extract will show: 

“Naturally, if the wretched are unknown, or but 
vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ig- 
nored, and thus it happens that when the miseries of the 
poor are depicted, they are thought of as the miseries 
of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of, as in 
large measure they should be, as the miseries of the un- 
deserving poor. Those whose hardships are set forth in 
pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches are 
assumed to be all worthy souls grievously wronged, and 
none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of 
their own misdeeds. They have no work, you say, say 
rather, that they either refuse to work, or quickly turn 
themselves out of it; they are simply good for nothings 
who in one way or other live on the good for somethings. 
Vagrants and sots, criminals and those on the way to 
crime, youths who are burdens to hard-worked parents, 
men who appropriate the wages of their wives, fellows 
who share the gains of prostitutes, and then, though less 
numerous, we have a corresponding class of women.” 

There is no statement that is more misleading and 
confusing than the one that has a grain of truth in it, al- 
though it is quite true that there are many who are hope- 
lessly bad, depraved and useless members of society, yet 
they only form a very small percentage of what we term 
the poor, and as for their refusing to work, statistics 
prove that the present industrial system is incapable of 
employing all those who seek work. The displacement of 
labor by machinery has enormously increased the unem- 
ployed, and through the large number of applicants for 
every position the employer is able to exact such condi- 
tions and pay such low wages that the life of a tramp^ 


12 


a knave or a criminal is preferred by many to the miser- 
able existence of the average wage worker. Many 
workers can only secure a few months’ work in the year, 
they manage to get a little here and there, but when one 
is in the other is out of work, they are merely changing 
places. Hundreds of thousands can never hope for per- 
manent employment unless the hours of work are very 
considerably lessened, or the industrial system is 
changed. 

Herbert Spencer is a great exponent of the survival 
of the fittest doctrine. On page 354 of his “Social Statics,” 
he says: 

“The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that 
come from the imprudent, the starvation of the idle and 
the shouldering aside of the weak by the strong, which 
leaves so many in ‘shallows and miseries,’ are the decrees 
of a large far-seeing benevolence. It seems hard that 
an unskillfulness which with all his efforts he cannot 
overcome should entail hunger upon the artisan. It 
seems hard that a laborer incapacitated by sickness from 
competing with his stronger fellows should have to bear 
the resulting privation. It seems hard that widows and 
orphans should be left to struggle for life or death. Nev- 
ertheless, when regarded not separately, but in connection 
with the interest of universal humanity, these harsh fa- 
talities are seen to be full of the highest benificence, the 
same benificence that brings to early graves the children 
of diseased parents and singles out the low spirited and 
the intemperate.” 

Yes, it is indeed hard that the unskillfulness or in- 
ability to compete with or to purchase or control the 
powerful labor saving machine should condemn the ar- 
tisan to privation and misery. 

Mr. Spencer says that consumptives and weaklings 


13 


die oft’ and thus tend to improve the race. Now, as this 
process of evolution has been going on for ages, we ought 
naturally to be superior in physique to the ancients; if 
we are superior then the ahcients must have been a sorry 
lot of creatures, very unlike what the statues of Greeks, 
etc., lead us to believe. In connection with this it is 
strange that the physical standard for recruits in the arm- 
ies is being constantly lowered by the authorities in or- 
der to fill the ranks. 

The records of 1890 show that in the United States 
.102,199 persons died from consumption, and 27,058 
from typhoid fever, and many states gave no returns on 
this subject. 

Mr. Spencer alludes to the starvation of the idle. 
Now, as a* matter of fact, the idle class is that which 
above all others has the most wealth. 

In ‘‘Social Statics,” page 355, Mr. Spencer says: 

“All these evils which afflict us and seem to the un- 
initiated the obvious consequences of this or that re- 
movable cause, are unavoidable attendants on the adapt- 
ation now in progress. Humanity is being pressed against 
the inexorable necessities of its new position, is being 
moulded into harmony with them, and has to bear the 
resulting unhappiness as best it can. The process must 
be undergone, and the suffering must be endured. No 
power on earth, no cunningly devised laws of statesmen, 
no world-rectifying schemes of the humane, no commun- 
ist panacea, no reforms that men ever did broach or ever 
will broach, can diminish them one jot. Intensified they 
may be, and are, and in preventing an intensification the 
philanthropic will find ample scope for exertion.” 

This is not very encouraging to seekers after hap- 
piness. But read it again; notice how dogmatic it is; it 
seems more like the sentence of a judge than the logic of 


14 


a philosopher; it reminds one of the knell of doom, 
and one can almost hear Edgar Allan Poe's raven croak- 
ing — Evermore. 

Mr. Spencer asserts “that no power on earth, no cun- 
ningly devised laws, etc., ever did, or ever can diminish 
these evils one jot.’’ Now, this is so at variance with the 
development of science and civilization that we cannot 
help asking, does he really believe it himself? If we turn 
to page 372 of his “Principles of Biology,” we find him 
saying : 

“Our lives are universally shortened by our ignor- 
ance. In attaining complete knowledge of our own na- 
tures and the natures of surrounding things, in ascertain- 
ing the conditions of existence to which we must con- 
form, and in discovering means of conforming to them 
under all variations of seasons and circumstances, we 
have abundant scope for intellectual progress.” 

Now, it might reasonably be asked of what use is it 
to acquire knowledge, if it will not enable us to diminish 
one jot of the evils that surround us. 

Turning to another of Spencer’s works, the “Prin- 
ciples of Ethics,” we find he says: 

“Harmonious co-operation, by which alone the 
greatest happiness can be attained, is, as we saw made 
possible, only by respect for one another’s claims. There 
must be neither those direct aggressions which wc class 
as crimes against person or property, nor must there be 
those indirect aggressions constituted by breaches of con- 
tract. So that maintenance of equitable relations between 
men is the condition to attainment to greatest happiness 
in all societies.” 

There is a little story told of a certain man who vis- 
ited a law court for the first time. He listened to a lawyer 


15 


who was pleading a case on behalf of a client. The visitor 
was impressed, and turning to a friend said, “that is cer- 
tainly conclusive argument,” but presently the opposing 
lawyer got up and proceeded to give such weighty argu- 
ments as to cast grave doubt upon the subject. The vis- 
itor left the court in disgust, declaring that both the law- 
yers must be rogues. 

The experience of the searcher after truth is similar 
to this. We turn from the writings of one noted man after 
another, in greater doubt and confusion than when we 
started; for, as Mr. Joynes says, the priest has explained 
that poverty and misery is necessitated by a law of God ; 
the economist has proved its necessity by a law of nature, 
and between them they have succeeded in convincing 
the laborers of the hopelessness of any opposition to the 
capitalist system. 

The difficulty which has to be overcome arises princi- 
pally from prejudice and imagination. We have false 
ideas made to suit a certain class of men; sophistry is ■ 
mistaken for correct reasoning; dogmatic assertion is 
mistaken for fact, and we deal too much with ef¥ects and 
too little with causes. 

Through the spread of education and literature the 
masses are getting better informed on the various subjects 
that concern them, and passive acquiescence to the opin- 
ions of others is being displaced by a searching inquiry 
into facts. As our reasoning power develops and our 
insight into things becomes more clear we very frequent- 
ly find that the man whom we formerly regarded as an 
infallible oracle turns out to be a very ordinary man and . 
in many cases he proves to be a narrow-minded bigot. 

We find men, too, fond of a vain show of learning, 

i6 


and many of them love to quibble; for instance, a man 
says, “It’s cold to-day.” The quibbler (who imagines he 
is a logician) asks, “What do you mean by it? The tem- 
perature? Do you mean is cold, or do you mean feels, or 
appears cold?” “It feels cold.” “Cold in what sense? To 
yourself, or to others, or to Polar bears, or by the ther- 
mometer?” and so on. 

This pretence of being absolutely precise and accu- 
rate is not only unnecessary, but it is absurd, and a waste 
of time. To get at fundamental facts it is not absolutely 
necessary to have a complete knowledge of logic and 
science; scientific men are often very unpractical. Not 
long ago a noted scientist lighted a fire in his room, the 
fire refused to burn, and the professor was found fussing 
and poking at the fire, nearly choked and in a bad tem- 
per; a practical housemaid came in, set fire to an old 
newspaper, put it over the fire, created a draught, and in 
two minutes had a fire blazing. Now, that housemaid 
probably did not know the exact scientific reason why 
heat should create a draught, yet the professor knew 
exactly why, but he failed to make a practical use of his 
knowledge. 

Not above one farmer in a hundred understands the 
laws of nature which cause the development of vegetable 
life, yet these farmers make a much better success of 
farming than the scientist, who does understand these 
laws, would do. 

This goes to show that we should not attach much 
importance to the opinions expressed by others simply ^ 
because they appear more learned and scientific than our- 
selves. . 

I do not wish to underrate the value of science, but 


17 


I affirm that if we depended less on the opinions of our 
leaders and advisers and more on that homely logic 
which all persons ot average intelligence possess, we 
would speedily abolish many of the evils that we now 
have to tolerate. 

It does not need very great wisdom to conceive a 
remedy for most of the social evils that now exist. It is 
not necessary to be versed in the sciences and arts or 
to be an expert in synthesis, analysis, or metaphysics; 
simple justice and plain, practical common sense is all 
that is required to govern the relations between man 
and his fellow man, and if we only make practical use of 
these virtues,we could easily dispense with the advice of 
the self-seeking politician, the bookworm and the logic 
chopper. 


WAGE SLAVERY. 


Our fathers are begging for pauper pay, 

Our mothers with death’s kiss are white. 

Our sons are the rich man’s slaves by day, 

And our daughters his slaves at night. 

— Gerald Massey. 

It is well that while we range with science, glorying 
in the time, 

City children soak and blacken soul and sense in 
city slime. 

There among the gloomy alleys, progress halts on 
palsied feet. 

Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand 
on the street. 

There the master scrimps his haggard sempstress 
of her daily bread, 

There a single sordid attic holds the living and the 
dead; 

There the smoldering fire of fever creeps across the 
rotted floor. 

And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of 
the poor. 

— Alfred Tennyson. 

There are many persons who do not realize that 
slavery exists in this country; this may be due to their 
conception of the meaning of the word slavery. What 
is a slave? One who must work at the convenience of 
another. There are two kinds of slaves; the chattel slave, 
who can be moved from place to place, and whipped and 


,19 


punished at the whim of his master, and the wage slave, 
who can change his master and his locality. 

A wage slave has been well described as being a 
man or woman dependent upon the whim or caprice of 
another, who, by the private ownership of the means of 
production, is able to refuse employment or give such 
wages or impose such conditions as the workman with- 
out property is compelled to accept or to starve. 

The chattel slave is kept a prisoner by physical 
force, the wage slave is kept a prisoner by his physical 
needs, food, clothing and shelter. The chattel slave tries 
to run away, the wage slave comes to a master and 
begs to be hired. In bygone times forcible means were 
used to get the requisite supply of slaves, but such old- 
fashioned methods are no longer needed, since the means 
of production (the land and the tools) have been taken 
away from the workers. The capitalist class have laws 
made to secure them in their possession of the means 
of life, and then they have no difficulty in getting all 
the slaves they require; no force is necessary, the slaves 
come of their own volition. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer says that “With rich soils, a 
splendid climate and a large market for the sale of pro- 
duce, negro slavery would seem a very mine of wealth, 
and yet, though worked in some* cases sixteen hours out 
of the twenty-four, though supported on a pint of flour 
and one salt herring per day, though kept to his work by 
whips, yet the slave did not bring to his owner the large 
profits calculated upon. Indeed, it has turned out that 
under like circumstances free labor is much cheaper.’' 

Much cheaper. Why? The chattel slave had a value; 
sometimes they cost $2,000. Now-a-days this $2,000 


20 


could be invested in machinery, etc., and a slave kept for 
about the same price as before, namely, the cost of the 
lowest standard of living, and the capitalist loses nothing 
if his wage slave should die, but with chattel slavery he 
would lose his $2,000. 

If we investigate the condition of the lowest paid 
class of workers it is easy to see why wage slaves are 
more profitable than chattel slaves. Bishop Huntingdon 
of New York, stated that in that city alone many thou- 
sands of men and woni^en worked sixteen hours a day for 
from 40 to 60 cents, out of which they paid for their rent 
and food. 

The prices paid to tailors and sempstresses are 50 
cents for sewing twelve pair of pants and 60 cents a dozen 
for shirts, out of which they have to buy thread and 
pay their room rent and board. The Bishop says that by 
the hardest kind of work they can only average from 35 
to 60 cents a day; that they live mostly in shockingly un- 
healthy places. Many thousands live several families in 
one room, and their food consists principally of bread 
and tea, pickles and salted herrings. 

But, it may be said, these people are free to leave 
these conditions. Are you sure of that, have you tried 
to walk from town to town in search of work? Try it, 
without money or friends, and you will soon realize what 
it means to be called a tramp and a vagrant. The mere 
fact that these people tolerate these cruel conditions is 
proof that they are helpless and unable to change them. 

Mr. Hy. D. Lloyd, in his book. Wealth versus Com- 
monwealth, gives a short summary of the findings of a 
committe of Congress, with reference to the relations ex- 
isting between the railroad and coal companies, whidi 


21 


control the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, and the 
coal miners: 

“Congress has found (Document No. 4) that the 
coal companies in the anthiacite regions keep thousands 
of surplus laborers in hand to underbid each other for 
employment, and for submission to exactions; hold them 
purposely ignorant of when the mines are to be worked 
and when closed, so that they cannot seek employment 
elsewhere; bind them as tenants by compulsion in the 
companies’ houses, so that the rent shall run against 
them whether wages run or not, and under leases by 
which they can be turned out with their wives and chil- 
dren on the mountain side in midwinter if they strike; 
compel them to fill cars of larger capacity than agreed 
upon; make them buy their powder and other working 
outfit of the companies at an enormous advance on the 
cost; compel them to buy coal of the company at the com- 
pany’s price, and in many cases to buy a fixed quantity 
more than they need ; compel them to employ the doctor 
named by the company, and to pay him whether sick or 
well; pluck them at the company’s store, so that when 
pay-day comes around the company owes the men noth- 
ing, there being authentic cases where sober, hard-work- 
ing miners toiled for years without being able to show a 
single dollar, or but few dollars in actual cash; in debt 
until the day they died; refused to fix the wages in ad- 
vance, but pay them on some hocus-pocus sliding scale 
varying with the selling price in New York, which the 
railway slides to suit itself; and, most astounding of all, 
refuse to let the miners know the prices on which their 
living slides. ,A fraud, says Congress, on its face. Pages 
71 and 72). 

“The companies dock the miners’ output arbitrarily 
for slate and other impurities, and so can take from their 
men five to fifty tons more in every hundred than they 
pay for (p. 76). In order to keep the miners disciplined 
and the coal market under supplied, the railroads re- 
strict work so that the miners often have to live for a 


22 


month on what they can earn in six or eight days, and 
these restrictions are enforced upon miners by holding 
cars from them to fill or upon competitors (of the com- 
pany) by withholding cars to go to market (Doc. No. 4, 
P- 77 )- 

“Labor organizations are forbidden, and the men 
intentionally provoked to strike to effect the coal mar- 
ket. The laboring population of the coal regions is kept 
“down’’ by special policemen enrolled under special 
laws, and often in violation of law, by the railroads and 
coal and iron companies, practically when and in what 
number they choose, and practically without responsibil- 
ity to anyone but their employers ; armed as the corpora- 
tions see fit with army revolvers or Winchester rifles, or 
both; made detectives by State and not required to wear 
their shields; provoking the public to riot (pp. 9 and 93- 
98) and then shooting them legally. 

“By the percentage of wages,” says the Report of 
Congress, “by false measurements, by rents, stores and 
other methods, the workman is virtually a 'chattel’ of the 
operator.” 

On the Fourth of July some 200 men, heads of 
American families, sovereigns and peers of this nation, 
solemnly signed a contract with the mine owners of 
Spring Valley, Illinois, binding themselves as slaves to 
that corporation for the assurance of the maintenance 
of themselves and families during the period of their 
natural lives. As it requires two parties to make a con- 
tract this one did not get ratified; the mine owners de- 
cided it were better “business” to use them when they 
wanted them on the wages plan and turn them adrift 
when they had no further use for them. 

Surely, after reading the foregoing, no one who is 
unprejudiced would hesitate to admit that something- 
very miich akin to slavery does exist in this country of 
ours. 


23 


The American workmen are frequently told of the 
cruel evictions of poor Irish families by English land- 
lords, but we are seldom reminded of the fact that the 
evictions in one year in one American city alone out- 
number four to one the evictions in the whole of Ireland. 
In 1890 the record was 5,000 for the whole of Ireland, 
and 23,800 for New York City. 

The hell of poverty, said the great Carlyle, is the 
hell that is most to be feared. He spoke the truth, for 
there is no imagination about the hell of poverty; it is 
present with us,a bitter, horrible reality. 

Not only does the wage-worker spend most of his 
life in grinding toil, receiving poverty and hardship as 
his reward, but the danger to the health and life of the 
workers in many trades and employments is also very 
great, and anyone who will study the subject of danger- 
ous employments will be astounded to find that men run 
such risks for such small wages. ^ 

The average of life of artisans in steel in Sheffield 
(England) is given as follows: Dry grinders of forks, 
29 years, razors 31 years, scissors 32 years, edge tool and 
wool shears 32 years, spring knives 34 years, table knives 
35 years, files 35 years. The ascending longevity being in 
proportion to the amount of water used in the grinding, 
and this rate of mortality is a very great improvement on 
what it used to be, on account of better methods em- 
ployed. 

The lungs of coal miners become clogged with coal 
dust, and after death they have the appearance of being 
dipped in ink. Here is a description from the British 
Medical Journal of two post-mortem examinations of 
coal miners: 


24 


“In each case the black treacly fluid obtained by cut- 
ting the various portions of the lung and by slitting up 
the bronchial tube, was evaporated in dryness and the 
residium being broken up and subjected to a red heat in a 
porcelain gas retort, behaved precisely as coal, i.e., it 
evolved a smoke-like gaseous product which, on being 
slightly condensed, deposited hydro-sulphide of ammon- 
ium and coal tar. The presence of this foreign body in 
the lungs leads to the whole train of pulmonary diseases.” 

Thus, in addition to the danger of sudden death 
through explosion or fire, or being buried alive, or by 
poison by fire damp or carbonic acid gas or carburetted 
hydrogen gas, thousands are also killed in the lead 
and quicksilver mines. The number of men killed through 
the mining industries is said to considerably exceed all 
that have been killed in war. 

The following extract from a newspaper speaks for 
itself: 

“The artisan who handles lead in its various combin- 
ations can tell when the lead is entering his system by a 
rarely failing sign, a blue line will be discovered near the 
edge of the gums. When this blue Peter (as it is called) 
is hoisted, he may know that unless he takes some pre- 
cautions his bread-earning hand will speedily drop pow- 
erless by his side by paralysis. The cause is the long 
hours which make the worker tired and careless, the 
want of pure air and ventilation and proper sanitary ar- 
rangements, which ought not to be left in the hands of 
greedy men.” 

No matter how dangerous the work there are always 
plenty of men only too willing to do it; the poor fellows 
have to either work or starve. The helplessness of the 
worker is becoming greater as the machinery of pro- 
duction is increased and perfected. The improvement 


25 


in machinery is really astounding. Not many years ago 
20,000 screws was the most that 20 skillful men could 
turn out, but two machines handled by two girls can now 
turn out 240,000 screws a da)\ 

The combined header and thresher with a crew of 
five men can do the work that the old style machines 
required 20 men to do, and yet even the old style ma- 
chines could do the work of five hundred hand scythes 
and flails. A tonguer and groover, and surfacing ma- 
chine with one man and two boys cgn turn out more and 
better lumber than four hundred old-time joiners could 
with their planes and matchets. A modern spinning ma- 
chine can be handled by a child, and it will turn out 
more and better work than fifteen thousand spinning 
wheels, such as our grandmothers used to make clothes 
with. One boy can attend enough stocking knitting 
machines to turn out five thousand pairs a week. 

One operator can now stitch about one thousand pairr. 
of shoe soles a day; in the old days it required a very 
good man to sew six pairs a day. A pegging machine 
will peg a pair of shoes in fourteen seconds. Shelling 
corn used to give many thousands a chance to earn a few 
dollars; it required a good Avorker to shell five bushels 
a day, but now two men with a machine can shell fifteen 
hundred bushels a day. 

It required a good worker to gin five pounds of cot- 
ton, but now two men with a machine will turn out four 
thousand pounds a day. 

The horses used for pulling street cars used to fur- 
nish employment for thousands — harness makers, horse- 
shoers, farmers to raise grain, hay and straw, stablemen, 
etc. 


26 


These are only a few examples of many thousands of 
improvements that have been and- are still being in- 
troduced in our industrial system. 

The new machine or improvement does not shorten 
the hours of labor (under this system), it merely increases 
the number of unemployed. Now, considering these facts, 
and are they not facts, is it at all strange that there 
should be such large numbers of people out of employ- 
ment and such dire poverty and privation as we see 
around us? 

It can be proved that seventeen thousand hands to- 
day can by means of machinery do the work that less 
than a hundred years ago would require the . hardest 
labor of thirteen million men to accomplish. 

The most significant fact in this connection is that 
the present industrial system, as at present conducted, is 
absolutely incapable of providing work for the unem- 
ployed, for if all were set to work the production would 
be so enormous that there could be no demand, no mar- 
ket for it; even now the markets are glutted with a sur- 
plus of goods for which there is no effective demand, i.e., 
purchasers. 

The population is increasing, and yet the demand 
for laborers is decreasing; the result being an ever in- 
creasing number of unemployed who are used by the 
employers as a menace to those that are employed, in- 
creasing the dependence of the worker upon the whim 
and caprice of his master. 

The position of the worker is simply this. He can- 
not employ himself, as his hand tools make his product 
too costly in comparison to that of the machine made 
product. He cannot compete with the machine, nor can 

27 


he purchase the costly machine with its steam power, etc., 
therefore he must go to the man that owns the machine 
and beg for work; sometimes after months of unemploy- 
ment the laborer becomes a tramp, or a criminal, or dies 
of , starvation or suicide, because (according to the sur- 
vival of the fittest theory) he is not fit to survive. 

It is hypocrisy to tell the wage worker that he is 
free. No man is free unless he owns and controls his 
means of living; if he does not own them, he is depend- 
ent upon and subject to the man that does own them. 
He who controls our food, clothing and shelter controls 
our right to life, for the right to life rests upon the right 
to the means by which life is supported. 

A large number of unemployed enormously in- 
creases the power of the capitalists, and they have such 
power that they can treat men who strike for decent 
wages as rebels; workers are frequently starved into sub- 
mission by means of the lockout. 

The right of wage-workers to combine for their de- 
fense against the capitalists is abridged in thirty-three 
States and Territories, and the recent imprisonment of 
Mr. E. V. Debs is a glaring example of the despotism of 
the present system. 

In a newspaper recently an editor tried to prove 
that the statement that the rich are growing richer is 
not correct. Now it does not require much figuring to 
settle that question. It is unquestionable that the wealth 
of the country has enormously increased during the last 
thirty years, yet the workers have just about as much 
wealth now as they had then; it consists principally of 
the clothes they have on. 

Seven men in this country are reputed to have a 
28 


thousand million dollars’ worth of wealth between them, 
which is a great deal more than all the sovereigns of the 
world could put together. 

To the capitalists wage slavery is a great success; 
they are indifferent to the misery and suffering that 
exists; the more demoralized and dependent the workers 
are the cheaper they can be bought and it is even a 
convenience that women are forced to sell themselves for 
food. All the world seems all right to those who feast on 
good dinners and wear fine clothes; life to them (if 
healthy) is all sunshine. Through long habit and custom 
the rich have come to really believe themselves entitled 
to their wealth and power, and they really imagine that 
the working people are inferior animals, only fit for 
drudgery, and to give an occasional condescending nod 
or a pleasant word is a great honor to such creatures, 
and, alas, that man should be so servile, it is really es- 
teemed an honor by many wage slaves. 

On December 2, 1892, the German Emperor made 
a speech which shows to what an astounding extent one 
man will presume over his fellowmen. Addressing some 
recruits he said, ‘‘You have sworn allegiance to me; that 
means that you have given yourselves to me, body and 
and soul; you have only one enemy and that is my en- 
emy. In the present socialist agitation I 'may order you, 
which God forbid, to shoot down your relatives, even 
your brothers and parents, and you must obey without 
a murmur; the duty of a soldier is to obey, not to think.” 

Unhappily, many of our militiamen in this country 
would probably obey such orders if given by their offi- 
cers; they do not realize the cruel system they are sup- 
porting, and yet it is surely evident enough. Think of 


29 


the condition of millions of our fellow creatures, consider 
the life of the average workingman; in the harness from 
infancy to old age, robbed not only of the fruits of his 
labor, but the best years of his life spent in monotonous 
drudgery, the only intervals being for food and sleep, 
sometimes bullied by his employer; tortured by the de- 
sires and yearnings that he cannot gratify; millions of 
workers cannot afford to get married, the worker is also 
worried by the fear of starving when too old to work, or 
dying of disease brought on through exposure and in- 
sufficent food, and being buried in the Potters’ field. Dur- 
ing the ten years ending 1891 one-tenth of all the persons 
who died in New York City were buried in the Potters’ 
field. This is the average for ten years, and yet it does 
not include all the paupers who died there, for many of 
the poor will starve and deny themselves necessities 
rather than have their relatives buried in the Potters’ 
field. 

When I see, or even think of the destitution and 
anxiety of the wretched people in the slums, their food 
unfit and adulterated and scanty at that, their unsanitary 
homes, causing discomfort and disease; when they see 
their dearest friends and relatives dying for want of sim- 
ple necessaries, which alas, they are unable to buy, I 
marvel how they can be so patient. I wonder they do not 
rise up and glut that murderous feeling of revenge that 
I am sure must be in their hearts. Thousands commit sui- 
cide, preferring a speedy death to a lingering struggle 
with starvation and disease. 

Mr. William Clarke in “Fabian Essays,” says: 

“Had you predicted to a Roman Senator that the 
splendid Graeco-Roman cities would be given to the 


30 


flames, and that the Roman Senate and legions would be 
destroyed by ignorant barabarians, he would have 
smiled, offered you another cup of wine, and changed the 
subject. Yet we know this happened, and, I confess, I 
can see nothing in our mushroom civilization which we 
have any particular right to regard as inherently more 
enduring than the elaborate and stately organism of Ro- 
man jurisprudence. The barbarians are in our midst. Do 
you suppose that the victim of crushing poverty cares 
one pin’s head for all the world’s wisdom and develop- 
ment. How are these large masses of starving paupers 
to be induced to subordinate their passions to the de- 
mands of reason. The record of nearly every great strike 
shows that instead of needing to be led to commit vio- 
lence, the crowd has needed leaders of great influence to 
restrain them.” 

Persons of the wealthy and middle classes do not 
realize the danger that always exists and increases daily 
witli the increase of poverty and degradation. 

That patriotism for which the American workman 
was famous is rapidly changing with the condition of 
the common people. During the late talk of war with 
England, scores of workmen, American born, were heard 
to say that they would not fight to defend a country that 
did not belong to them. This country, they said, belongs 
to a comparatively few great capitalists; not one work- 
man in a hundred has a home that he can call his own, 
and he would not haye anything to lose even if some 
foreigners did invade the country. 

History tells us that in the last year of the Roman 
Empire, when all the wealth was in the hands of the few, 
that the Roman Proletariat showed the same indifference 
to the fate of their country, and refused to serve in its 
army, which had to be filled with foreign mercenaries. 


31 


Unless a radical change is made iti our industrial 
system, a terrible revolution may be the result. If it is 
once started, there is no telling where it will end. When 
its evil passions are aroused a mob is cruel and relentless ; 
it has no regard for life or property, or even its own 
safety ; it is like a mass of famished tigers. 

Can you not, in your mind’s eye, see the picture of 
a city in possession of a mob; the water and the means 
of lighting have been cut off or destroyed, and the 
streets are dark, except here and there near the light of 
a burning house. In fancy hear the report of firearms 
and the loud explosion of dynamite, the fiendish yells 
and curses of the mob and the shrieks and screams of ter- 
rified women and children. Fancy, you say, mere imag- 
ination; such a thing is impossible. Well, let us hope it 
is ; but, remember such things have been. 


'IliSgfIMI 

iiii^iinn 

# 11 # 


32 


WHERE LIES MY INTEREST? 


It is generally asserted that we are all governed by 
self interest, and, possibly, the assertion is very nearly 
correct, for if we reflect a little we find that we have to 
admit that even the man who does a noble, generous ac- 
tion, has at least some interest in doing it. It may please 
him to secure the love, gratitude and admiration of those 
his action benefits, or he may be so mentally constituted 
that his conscience would prick him, or his self esteem, 
or his sense of honor feel lowered if he had failed or ne- 
glected to perform a good act. 

But, aside from this, what should govern us but self 
interest; should it be our loss, our damage, our disinter- 
est? Absurd. The only question is where interest truly 
lies, and simple as the question appears, and self evident 
as the answer becomes on investigation, yet comparative- 
ly few people seem to realize where their best interest 
really lies. 

The sordid, grasping business man, of the kind that 
we see so frequently, has the same object in view as the 
kindly, cheerful hospitable man who is loved by his 
neighbors; and that object is happiness, the gratification 
of tastes and faculties. But, it may be said, the sordid 
man has tastes different to those of the other man. True, 
he may even wish to be cruel and tyrannical to his fel- 
lows, but we are not considering the interest of one man, 
or of one class of men, but of all men collectively, and it 


33 


is obvious that it is not to the interest of men to allow in- 
dividuals to be cruel and tyrannical to them. 

The sordid individual, if wealthy, may command 
hirelings and toadies, but he cannot command the friend- 
ship or respect of his neighbors. He never has a chance 
to enjoy that fraternal association, with its absence of 
restraint, with its joyous confidence and open-hearted- 
ness which only persons who are liked by their fellows 
can secure. 

The sordid man may (after accumulating a fortune) 
surround himself with all the luxuries that art can con- 
ceive and money purchase. He may live in a mansion 
with a beautiful garden, and yet life be miserable and 
gloomy to him; his luxuries become insipid, and his beau- 
tiful mansion seem a gilded prison; his servants have 
an ill-concealed dislike for him; his relatives assume an 
artificial cordiality which he can easily see through; he 
feels himself surrounded by parasites, some of them, 
probably, hoping for his speedy death. 

Our every day experience proves to us that mere 
grasping selfishness can never secure a happy life, and it is 
quite evident that a man may pursue his own particular 
self interest and yet, though not realizing where it lies, 
he may utterly fail to secure it. It is even possible that 
we may have the best disposition toward society, the most 
upright intentions, and yet, through ignorance, we may 
pursue many things that are neither to our own interest, 
or that of the public. 

The more we investigate the subject of self interest, 
the more convinced we must become that the true in- 
terest of all men is found only in association based on 
terms of equal freedom. That man has to surrender cer- 


34 


tain privileges on becoming a member of a community is 
not to be denied, but the advantages lost by association 
are so trivial compared to those advantages gained as 
not to be worth consideration. There are some persons 
who speak very glibly about the easy pleasant lives led bv 
savages, their freedom from the restraints, etc., of civilized 
people, but if persons who think this way would but live 
a few months with savages and use nothing but the 
same primitive tools, clothes, food, etc., as the savages 
u^e, live in the same Icind of tent and sleep on the same 
kind of skin rugs, they would soon realize that it is by 
no means such a paradise as they had pictured. 

In early days brute force was probably the only agent 
that governed the actions of men, and when injury was 
done, the injured party was generally his own judge, 
jury and executioner. When a man was killed his rela- 
tives considered it their solemn duty to avenge his death 
on the old principle of an eye for an eye, and a life for a 
life. In turn the avenger would get killed, and the fam- 
ily feuds would frequently last for ages, each injury re- 
ceived being the incentive to still further hostilities. To 
this day there are family feuds in Spain, Italy and Cor- 
sica that have lasted for many generations. 

Herbert Spencer, writing on this subject in “Social 
Statics,” says : 

“Such immediate personal impulse toward avenging 
wrong is at the present time in society subordinated to 
the common judgment and will. On the other hand it is 
not merely the one directly injured, but also the whole of 
society that is disturbed in respect to its feeling of justice 
and that has the same claim to take part in the avenging. 
On the other hand the powerlessness that frequently ex- 
ists ought to be supplemented by the force of the whole 


35 


community. It is chiefly, however, the welfare of so- 
ciety, as well as its own consciousness of right which 
stipulates for security against the injustice to which the 
passion, the caprice, the perverted excitability and the false 
suspicion of the injured party might lead. Hence the de- 
mand to surrender the right of avenging and helping one- 
self and to desire only that satisfaction which according 
to the unprejudiced judgment of the common conscious- 
ness of right, the actual matter of the fact of injury re- 
quires.” 

The administration of justice is no^ by any means the 
only object which causes men to associate In communi- 
ties, and if that were their object, they have signally failed 
to secure it, as is shown frequently by the power of the 
rich to corrupt public ofiicials and pervert justice. In by- 
gone times each individual produced his food and shelter 
and other necessaries by his own labor. He had to make 
his own tools, and clothes and grind his own corn, etc., 
and it is evident that under such conditions that a man 
would have to work rather hard if he desired to secure 
anything approaching comfort. 

It is possible that a certain individual made better 
tools or weapons than his fellows could, and was able 
to barter these tools for other things. Constant demand 
for his tools or weapons and the receiving of a good 
reward for his work probably proved to the man that he 
could get a good living by merely making tools, etc. 
This is probably the way men first came to work at special 
trades. One took to fashioning iron, another made leather, 
another cloth, and so on until at the present time we find 
industry is so minutely subdivided that it is difficult to 
remember all its different branches. 

As our industrial system develops, our mutual de- 

36 


peiidence upon each other increases. Formerly each 
housewife made her own bread, nowadays she generally 
depends upon the baker for it. The baker is dependent 
upon the miller, the miller upon the farmer, the farmer 
for his tools upon the blacksmith, and the blacksmith de- 
pends upon the miner and the smelter, and each of these 
tradesmen depends upon a large number of others, such as 
carpenters, bricklayers, etc., and this subdivision of in- 
dustry has done more toward developing art and science 
and civilization generally than any other influence. 

If each individual had to produce all his necessaries, 
it is evident that his life would be one of great toil and 
hardship, and what with spinning cloth and cooking and 
cleaning and minding children, etc., his wife’s life would 
be equally hard. Now, no man, even if he be a genius, can 
be a master of twenty trades, and even if he were master 
of them all, he could not have the facilities or the time 
or find leisure for recreation, which is one of the essen- 
tials of happiness. 

It is, therefore, evident that it is to our interest to 
associate with our fellows and to simplify our methods of 
industry as much as possible, but the mere subdivision of 
industry will not of itself secure the object we have in 
view, for in our present industrial system, or want of sys- 
tem, an enormous amount of material and energy is 
wasted. The markets are glutted with goods for which 
there is no demand, and the workers who have produced 
these goods are out of work, and consequently out of 
funds as a reward for being so industrious. 

The concern of manufacturers now-a-days is not so 
much the production of goods, as the selling of them. 
Millions of articles are produced for which no customers 


37 


can be found. The prices of goods are lowered to such an 
extent that only those manufacturers that produce enor- 
mous quantities in the most economical manner can 
possibly clear any profit. The small producer is forced out 
and even between the large manufacturers the struggle 
for the possession of the market is so keen that one after 
the other, they collapse, leaving one gigantic concern or 
trust in possession. 

One very prominent evil resulting from the compet- 
itive struggle for existence is the great extent to which 
fraud and adulteration is practiced. It is becoming more 
difficult every day to purchase pure food. The plainest 
food is adulterated frequently with really poisonous sub- 
stances and there can be little doubt that our health is 
much affected by impure food. 

It is utterly impossible for the majority of the people 
to be fraternal and happy under a competitive system of 
industry; for, as a noted man once said: ‘'Competition 
gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage of 
the necessities of the poor, makes each man snatch the 
bread out of his neighbor’s mouth, converts a nation of 
brethren into a mass of hostile, isolated units, and finally 
involves capitalists and laborers in one common ruin.” 

Mr. Herbert Spencer says in “Social Statics” : “To 
adminster justice, to mount guard over men’s rights, is 
simply to render society possible.” 

Yes, but it must not be forgotten that we need pro- 
tection from individual greed and avarice, just as much 
as we need protection from physical violence; indeed, we 
need to be protected from the crafty schemer much more 
than from the mere brutal bully, and the man who steals 
from his fellows their means of living is by far the worst 

38 


enemy they have to fear. In order to live we must have 
land and the tools of production. If some one has ap- 
propriated these to himself, then we must either starve, 
steal, or become the slaves of this man, and work for 
what he chooses to give us. When this man (who is 
called a capitalist) has more slaves than he requires, 
when, in short, labor is a glut in the market, then the 
slaves compete with each other; they agree to work 
longer hours for still smaller pay. As a result of the 
struggle to get work (which means to get an existence) 
the workers become servile to their employers and sus- 
picious and treacherous to each other. They do not see 
their real enemies, the men who control the means of liv- 
ing, they see only other wage slaves trying to get their 
jobs. Instead of fighting the common enemy they fight 
each other, and men who were playmates together com- 
pete to get a slavish job. 

There is a well known historical incident which 
shows how friends become fiends when a necessity of 
life becomes a matter of struggle. 

A band of British soldiers had fought gallantly side 
by side against overwhelming odds, in the terrible heat 
of an Indian summer, sharing their scanty rations, bind- 
ing each other’s wounds, risking their lives to save 
wounded comrades, and gently aiding the sick ; but when 
the Indian nabob cast one hundred and fifty of them into 
the Black Hole of Calcutta, a place containing only 
twenty square feet of space, and with only one small win- 
dow, where alone a little fresh air could be found, every 
one of these devoted friends was tranformed into a brut- 
ish fiend in the selfish struggle to reach that window in 


39 


order to monopolize the little air that came in. Those 
that failed to be near it died of suffocation. 

Mr. Hy. D. Lloyd says in “Wealth versus Common- 
wealth” : 

“Our industry is a fight of every man for him- 
self. The prize we give the fittest is monopoly of the neces- 
saries of life, and we leave these winners of the powers of 
life and death to wield them over us by the same self ^ 
interests with which they took them from us. In all this 
we see at work a principle which will go into the records 
as one of the historic mistakes of humanity. There is 
no hope for any of us, but the weakest must go first is 
the Golden Rule of business. The man who should apply 
in his family or in his citizenship this ‘survival of the fittest 
theory’ as it is practically professed and operated in bus- 
iness would be a monster and would speedily be made 
extinct as we do with monsters. To divide the supply of 
food between himself and his children according to their 
relative powers of calculation, to follow his own concep- 
tion of his own self interest in any matter which the self 
interest of all has taken charge of, to deal as he thinks 
best for himself with foreigners with whom his country 
is at war, would be a short road to the penitentiary or the 
gallows.” 

Mr. Herbert Spencer says in “Social Statics” : “Men 
cannot break that vital law of the social organism, the law 
of equal freedom, without penalties in some way or other 
coming round to them. Being themselves members of the 
community they are affected by whatever affects it. Upon 
the goodness or badness of its state depends the greater 
or lesser efficiency with which it adminsters to their wants 
and the lesser or greater amount of evil it inflicts upon 
them, they feel the cumulative result of all sins against 
the moral law, their own sins included, and they suffer for 
those sins not only in extra restraints and alarms, but in 
the extra labor and expense required to compass their 
ends. The citizen must see that his own life can become ' 


40 


what it should be, only as fast as society becomes what it 
should be. In short, he must become impressed with the 
salutary truth that no one can be free till all are free; no 
one can be perfectly moral till all are moral, and no one 
can be perfectly happy till all are happy.” 

Let the individual who thinks that his interest is en- 
tirely detached from that of other men, look around him. 
I am alive, he might say to himself, and there are many 
persons here who could kill me. To whom do I owe a 
continuance of my life? To society. I find myself in a 
certain place. Is it exactly suited to my convenience? 
Is there not too much cold, or too much heat, or too 
much rain to please me? Am I never annoyed by sounds 
or draughts, or by animals, both of my own species and 
others? Is everything subservient to me as if I had 
ordered it all myself? No, it is not, nothing like it; a 
very long way from it. Then the world appears to have 
not been made for my special convenience. Is it possible 
to make it suit me exactly by my own personal industry? 
No, it is impossible, for it is only by the combined labor 
of my fellow creatures that I have secured the amount 
of comfort (such as it is) that I now enjoy. It is evident 
that, if I seek an interest that is entirely detached from 
others that it will be to my own detriment. 

If my interest is in association with my fellowmen, 
it is obvious that it is to my interest that men should be 
actuated by motives of honor and justice. 

Again, I must have food and shelter and clothing 
or I would soon die. Who produces these things? My 
fellowman. 

What do I owe this fellowman? Is it my own in- 


41 


terest, my own selfish interest, or is it my affection and 
fraternal co-operation? 

Justice, comfort, pleasure and economy in industry 
are all to be found in their best development only in as- 
sociation with our fellowmen, and therefore our interest 
is the interest of the whole community, of all men. 




42 


HAPPINESS. 


All American citizens are supposed to have the in- 
alienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. I use the word supposed because the right of the 
common people to liberty and the pursuit of happiness is 
very much a matter of supposition. Rights only exist 
when respected or enforced, and the rights of the com- 
mon people have been ignored by the wealthy and pow- 
erful for ages. In spite of all the stuff we hear about 
liberty, hard facts prove conclusively that it does not 
exist for the common people, and as for happiness or 
the pursuit of it, that is certainly only a very grim joke. 

The means of life are taken from the people, who 
are thus forced to either starve or work for a master, and 
they are told that they are free. 

They have to work from morn till night, till they 
are too worn out to think of anything but rest, their food 
is poor, their homes miserable and unhealthy, their 
minds troubled as to future work and the constant fear of 
want, and the remuneration they receive, in thousands 
and thousands of cases, even when working steadily, is 
insufficient to enable them to support a wife and have a 
home of their own; and yet they are told they are free 
to pursue happiness. What a cruel farce. It reminds 
us of the pirates who made men walk the plank in mid- 
ocean and told them that they were free to swim ashore. 

Are the people happy? Just look around you. Look, 


43 


for instance, at the homes of the poor who live in city 
tenement districts, unhealthy, uncomfortable, ill ventil- 
ated and unsanitary, no open space but that of the nar- 
row, dirty street. Look at the workshops, factories, the 
sweating dens where many workers are robbed of their 
health and their laobr, where they drudge away their 
lives from infancy to old age. The hard, cheerless lives 
they live make the people bad-tempered and unsociable. 
Husbands and wives and relatives quarrel over the 
merest trifles, their sordid, grinding poverty makes them 
selfish and indifferent. We more often see a scowl than 
a smile on their faces, and even the children look grave 
and serious at an early age. 

We lead such unhealthy, unnatural lives that we fall 
easy victims to disease. Instead of enjoying recreation 
and the fresh air, we drudge and slave and worry at such 
a pace that we have no energy, no capacity left to enjoy 
the pleasures of life. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer defines happiness as a gratified 
state of all the faculties. The gratification of a faculty is 
produce by its exercise. To have complete felicity is to 
have all the faculties exerted in the ratio of their several 
developments, and an ideal arrangement of circumstances 
calculated to secure this constitutes the standard of great- 
est happiness. 

Of course, individual ideas of a state of liappincss 
differ very radically. For instance, the Eskimo ideal is 
probably in Arctic surroundings with an abundance of 
seals to hunt and plenty of whale blubber to eat, whilst 
the South Sea Islander likes fruits and nuts and a warm 
sea to bathe in. The Hindoo conception of happiness 
was absolute rest, no worry, no longing, no anxiety. 


44 


whilst the Sioux Indian ideal was probably a wild exhila- 
rating ride on the plains with lots of buffalo and other 
game to hunt. 

Absolute and permanent happiness is impossible. 
There are so many circumstances that affect us. A per- 
son may be young and healthy and talented and rich and 
yet be unhappy because not good looking or because un- 
able to secure the love of some one desired. Again, a 
person may have all these advantages and yet be so anx- 
ious to excel others as to be intensely jealous and worried 
by rivals. 

But if absolute happiness is beyond the reach of hu- 
manity, if it is impossible, we can at least try to approach 
as near our ideal as possible, and if happiness is not con- 
tinuous, we should certainly try to get as much of it as 
we can. All men would be happy if they knew how. Not 
l)appy for minutes and miserable for hours, but liappy 
and contented through the greater part of their lives. 

There must be some method by which the maximum 
of happiness can be obtained, for every effect has a cause. 
Now, in our search for causes, let us be practical, let us 
be unprejudiced and impartial and admit self-evident 
facts. 

As futurity is hidden from our sight, we have no 
choice but to conduct our affairs in that way which seems 
best to secure comfort and happiness in this life. 

Now, happiness is impossible without health. We 
must therefore try to arrange our social organization in 
the way most favorable to the health of the community. 

Happiness is impossible in a state of want and pri- 
vation. We should, therefore, try to abolish privation. 

Happiness is impossible without liberty. It is impos- 


45 


sible for a man to be free when his means of living de- 
pend on the whim and caprice of his employer; there- 
fore, we should try to abolish the private monopoly of 
the means of life. 

Happiness is impossible without pure food and com- 
fortable and sanitary conditions. Adulterated food is the 
result of business competition. Unsanitary homes, etc., 
are the result of greedy landlordism; therefore, to prevent 
adulteration and unsanitary conditions we must try to 
abolish their causes. 

Happiness is impossible without leisure to enjoy 
recreation, pleasure and study; therefore, we should so ar- 
range our industries as to produce all the things neces- 
sary with the least expenditure of time and energy. 

Happiness is impossible to persons who are worry- 
ing over business and competing with each other for a 
bare existence; therefore, we ought to abolish business 
competition. 

Happiness is impossible without congenial compan- 
ionship. Companionship is impossible between men 
whose interests are opposed; therefore, we should try to 
make those interests identical. 

Good health, sufficient food, leisure, social inter- 
course, absence of discord and quarrelling, freedom from 
worry and anxiety; these are the primary requisites of 
happiness, and we should be unceasing in our efforts to 
attain them. The rhere fact that as a people we have 
not enjoyed the maximum of happiness obtainable is no 
proof that we cannot obtain it, for, as Mr. Herbert Spen- 
cer says in “Social Statics:” 

“The administration of justice was originally im- 
practicable, Utopian, and has become more and more 


practicable only as man becomes less savage. That an or- 
ganization dictated by the law of equal freedom cannot yet . 
be fully realized is no proof of its imperfection; is proof 
oiily of our imperfection, and as by diminishing this, the 
process of adaptation has already fitted us for institutions 
which were once too good for us. So will it go on to fit 
us for others that may be too good for us now. We have 
no need to perplex ourselves with investigation into the 
expediency of every measure by trying to trace out its 
ultimate results in all their infinite ramifications, a task 
which it is folly to attempt. Our course is to inquire con- 
cerning each measure, whether, or not, it fully recognizes 
these fundamental necessities. Our whole code of duty 
is comprehended in the endeavor to live up to these ne- 
cessities. The social state is a necessity. The conditions 
of greatest happiness under that state are fixed. Our 
characters are the only things not fixed; they, then, must 
be moulded into fitness for the conditions, and all moral 
teaching and discipline must have for its object to hasten 
this process.” 

We started out to investigate and form into a system 
the methods and rules that it is necessary to follow in or- 
der that the whole community may secure the maximum 
of happiness possible to society. Now, in our review 
of the conditions necessary to such happiness, the rules 
become obvious. It is also equally obvious that, if these 
rules are combined into a system, it would mean nothing 
less than a collective ownership of all the means of pro- 
duction and distribution regulated by and in the interest 
of every member of the community. The result of in- 
vestigation points distinctly to that system as the one in 
which the greatest happiness to the greatest num- 
ber can be best secured. In a co-operative com- 
monwealth, the industries could be so organized that the 
necessaries of life could be produced with about one-fifth 

47 


the expenditure of time and energy that is now required. 
Thus the people would have leisure time. Competition 
for the means of living would be abolished, men would 
be more sociable and would have no worry as to their fu- 
ture. 

Private rent, interest and profit would be abolished. 
Thus workers would receive a higher return for their 
labor. Business competition would cease; adulteration, 
etc., would not be practiced. We would get pure food. 

Private ownership of the means of living would be 
abolished; therefore, the worker would not depend upon 
the whims and caprices of individuals for his living. 

These are not exaggerations ; they are plainly the ob- 
vious effects that would be produced by a system of col- 
lective ownership. Herbert Spencer seems to realize 
this, for he says in “Social Statics”: 

“The citizens of a large nation industrially organ- 
ized have reached their possible ideal when the produc- 
ing, distributing and other activities are such that each 
citizen finds in them a place for all his energies and apti- 
tudes while he obtains the means of satisfying his de- 
sires.” 

The Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth then is 
the system. It is no mortifying system of self-denial. 
It suppresses no social and natural affections nor takes 
away any social or natural relations. It is simply a 
change in our industrial system, but its effects upon our 
social system would be enormously for our good. 



48 


SOCIALISM AND ITS OPPONENTS. 


There are many persons who will admit that the col- 
lective ownership of the means of production and dis- 
tribution would doubtless be a good solution of the in- 
dustrial problem that confronts society ; but, if these per- 
sons are told that this collective ownership is the ideal 
for which socialists, all over the world, are striving, they 
are surprised. The popular impression of a socialist is a 
person who wishes to have all wealth equally dis- 
tributed every ten years or so. 

This misconception of the objects of socialists is due 
to ignorance of the subject, and to deliberate misrepre- 
sentation by newspapers, journals, public speakers, etc. 
Who has not heard the statement that if all the wealth 
were equally divided there would be only about $40 each 
for every man, woman and child in the world? The 
per capita is figured at about $1,000 in the United States. 

How frequently we hear, that funny story about the 
millionaire being accosted by two footpads who told him 
that they were socialists and that he must divide up. 
“Certainly,” replied the millionaire affably. “I am quite 
willing; let’s see; I am worth $3,000,000, and three mil- 
lions of dollars divided between sixty million people, 
which is about the population of the country, would be 
just five cents each,” and giving each of the footpads a 
nickel, he said, “here’s your share, gentlemen,” and 


49 


wishing them good day, took his departure, chuckling 
at the discomfiture of the socialists. 

Lord Broughton described a Socialist as “a man 
who has yearnings for an equal division of unequal earn- 
ings.” 

The autobiography of this Lord Broughton fails to 
prove that he ever performed a single day's work of any 
value to the community during the whole course of his 
life. As he secured all the pleasures and luxuries that a 
large fortune could purchase, his yearnings, in all proba- 
bility, were to pose as a poet and a funny man; but in 
this he was not so successful as he was in getting a big 
share of other men’s earnings. 

It may please the opponents of socialism to spread 
the idea that socialists wish to divide up all the property 
and are aiming at a violent uprising of the common peo- 
ple, like that of the terrible French revolution; but when 
it becomes known that nearly two million socialists’ votes 
were cast in Germany, about two million and a quarter 
in France, four hundred thousand in little Belgium, about 
ninety thousand in England, and about fifty thousand in 
the United States, it will be evident to intelligent persons 
that the socialists believe in political action, and not in 
violence. Many active socialists are prominent men, 
scientists, university men, professorl of political economy, 
etc., and it would be preposterous to assume that such 
men would ally themselves with a lot of ignorant discon- 
tents who wish to divide up, such as opponents declare 
socialists to be. 

In Webster’s Dictionary we find socialism is defined 
as “A theory of society which advocates a more precise, 


50 


orderly, harmonious arrangement of the social relations 
of mankind than that which has hitherto prevailed.” 

Now, although this is apt to inspire and encourage 
the student to a further investigation of the subject, this 
definition does not give' any clue to the method by which 
this desirable end is to be attained. 

Dr. A. Shaffie, late Minister of Finance of the Aus- 
trian Empire, gives a very good definition in the follow- 
ing words: 

“The economic quintessence of the socialist pro- 
gramme, the real aim of the international movement, is to 
replace the present system of private capital, i.e., the 
speculative method of production, regulated on behalf of 
society, only by the free competition of private enter- 
prises, by a system of collective capital; that is, by a 
method of production which would introduce a unified 
(social or collective) organization of national labor, on 
the basis of collective and common ownership of the 
means of production by all members of society.” 

Socialists believe neither in Utopias, nor a violent 
method of revolution. They are practical persons who 
maintain that every effect has a cause; they maintain that 
the basic factor, determining the constitution of society, 
is its material and economic condition, and that this, 
therefore, is the key to the reconstruction of society. 

The fundamental object of socialists is the abolition 
of wage slavery and the prevention of appropriation by 
the few (through rent, interest and profit) of the product 
of the labor of the workers ; it implies the collective con- 
trol and administration of all the main instruments of 
wealth production, the recognition of fraternity, the uni- 
versal obligation of personal service, and the subordina- 
tion of individual ends to the common good. 


51 


Many persons feel bitter against society for the cruel, 
hard lives that they have to live; these are what might 
be termed natural kickers against the present system. 
They do not need much philosophy to see that there is 
something radically wrong and ‘unjust in the present con- 
stitution of society; but these persons will not or cannot 
read or investigate the subject. They fall easy victims 
to any theory that happens to come before them. If they 
are told that great numbers of foreigners are coming in- 
to the country, all their hatred will be for the foreigners. 
If they hear a singletaxer speak, the will forthwith look 
upon landlords as their only enemjes. If they hear an 
anarchist speak, they immediately lose all faith in the pos- 
sibility of a government or society ever being just and 
equitable. 

If they hear a socialist speak of the glorious co- 
operative commonwealth, they will probably grasp a few 
of the points stated and jump to erroneous conclusions 
for the others; and the propoganda of socialism often 
suffers from the fallacious and reckless statements of its 
advocates. 

When the convert starts out, he often makes mis-, 
leading or exaggerated speeches, so that it is often very 
easy for opponents to disprove the fallacious statements 
made by fervent, but sometimes ignorant, socialists. But 
if socialists occasionally make mistakes, so, also (and 
much more frequently), do their opponents. It is instruct- 
ive and interesting to study the arguments of opponents 
of socialism; many of them are fond of quoting Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer. Here is a specimen of Mr. Spencer’s logic 
on this subject: 

‘ An argument fatal to the communist theory is sug- 

52 


gested by the fact that a desire for property is one of 
the elements of our nature. There is a still more awk- 
ward dilemma into which Mr. Proudham and his party 
betray themselves; for if, as they assert, all property is 
lobbery; if no one can equitably become the exclusive 
possessor of any article, or, as we say, obtain a right 
to it, then, amongst other consequences, it follows that 
a man can have no right to the things he consumes for 
food. And if these are not his before eating, then how 
can they become his at all? When do they begin to 
be his? When he digests, or when he eats? If no previous 
acts can make them his property, neither can anv process 
of assimilation. Pursuing this idea, we arrive at the 
curious conclusion that, as the whole of his bones, skin, 
etc., have been built up from nutriment not belonging to 
him, a man has no property in his own flesh and blood, 
has no more claims to his own limbs than to his neigh- 
bor’s, and has as good a right to his neighbor’s body as 
to his own. Did he exist after the same fashion as those 
compound polyps, in which a number of individuals are 
based upon a living trunk, common to them all, such a 
theory would be rational enough; but until communism 
can be carried to that extent it will be best to stand by 
the old doctrine.” 

This is analyzing things with a vengeance; but if we 
read it carefully, it becomes evident that this analysis 
is more funny than philosophical, and it certainly shows 
a tinge of prejudice. 

Mr. Spencer’s attempt to ridicule collective owner- 
ship of the means of production, by resolving it into flesh 
and blood, is about on a par with the argument of the 
man who is opposed to granting Home Rule to Ireland, 
on the ground that if it is right for Ireland to govern it- 
self, it must be right for Wales and Scotland and Eng- 
land to govern themselves; and if it is right that they 
should do so, then it is right that every county should do 


53 


so, and that every town and every village, and 
even any small group of persons inhabiting a 
particular plot of land; and if it is not right 
for a small group of persons to govern them- 
selves, then it is not right for Ireland to govern itself. 
Using this sort of logic a person might reason: If it is 
right for the capitalist to own the land, upon which man 
absolutely depends for his living, then the men, and 
other animals upon that land, must also belong to the 
capitalist, and if they belong to him and he has a right 
to do what he likes with his own, then, if he feels so dis- 
posed, he has a right to kill them, to cut them up and 
eat them ; in short, he has a right to be a cannibal, and if 
he has no right to be a cannibal, then he has no right to 
the land. 

Herbert Spencer says in “Social Statics:” “There 
are not wanting philanthropic, and even thinking men, 
Vv^ho consider that the valuable ideas originated by indi- 
viduals, ideas, it may be, of great national advantage, 
should bejtaken out of private hands and thrown upon the 
public at large. And pray, gentlemen, an inventor 
might fairly reply: Why may I not make the same pro- 
posal respecting your goods and chattels, your clothing, 
your houses, if you are right ^in the interpretation you 
give to the term ‘monopoly’? I do not see why the 
term should not be applied to the coats upon your backs 
and the provisions upon your dining table.” 

This is the logic of the greatest philosopher of the 
age. Now, let us subject it to that practical common sense 
sort of philosophy, that was alluded to in the first part 
of this book. 

In the first place, Mr. Spencer tries to make it appear 
that each invention is the result of the exertion and 


54 


thought of one particular man. Now, this is not so. The 
great majority of inventions are the result of experience, 
necessity and simple observation. A man is working or 
watching others work, the idea suddenly strikes him that, 
by the addition of a certain mechanism (which he has 
probably seen used for some other purpose), it would 
simplify the work. He tries it; it succeeds, and he is 
looked upon as a genius. Many so-called inventions are 
very simple, indeed. A man made a gigantic fortune by 
the simple idea of combining the screw and the nail in 
one, the lower half like a nail, the upper threaded like 
a screw. 

Even when a man presents a plan which appears 
distinctly original, it cannot be said to be his own un- 
aided invention, he has simply put different parts to- 
gether. If there are wheels in the invention, did he in- 
vent the principle of the wheel? Did he invent the bolts 
and nuts, screws, cog-wheels, cranks, etc.? Did he in- 
vent the idea of iron casting, or the hammer, anvil, and 
saw, file, and the thousand and one things necessary to 
put the parts together? Herbert Spencer is fond of analy- 
sis; let him resolve the invention back into its original 
parts, and show us who was the real inventor. 

The present spinning machinery, which we now use 
in the manufacture of cloth and cotton stuffs, is a com- 
bination of no less than eight hundred separate and 
distinct inventions, without even mentioning the origi- 
nal invention of the hammer, saw, chisel, screw, nail, iron 
casting, rope, etc. 

The present carding machinery is a compound of 
sixty inventions, and so on. Invention is caused princi- 
pally by the knowledge of certain difficulties, and per- 

55 


sons concentrate their thoughts and make experiments 
in an endeavor to overcome these difficulties, and it is 
very probable that they would have done so even if there 
had H^een no pecuniary reward in view. 

Mr. Spencer says that “they fall into serious error 
who suppose that the exclusive right assumed by a dis- 
coverer is something taken from the public. For all 
the exertion he has had in subjugating a previously un- 
known region of nature, he simply asks an extra propor- 
tion of its fruits.” 

Now, let us examine this. In the first place, it is a 
well-known fact that very few inventors get much reward 
for their inventions. They are either robbed of them, 
or else compelled by their poverty to sell their inventions 
for small sums of money. The capitalists, and not the 
inventors, make the most wealth out of inventions. 

Mr. Spencer compares the monopoly of Ihe coats 
on our backs, and the provisions on our dining tables, 
to the monopoly of patents, of inventions. But there is 
no real analogy between them. The man who monopo- 
lizes a coat or a meal, merely takes that which is neces- 
sary to life, and which does not effect, at the most, more 
than one person. But the man who monopolizes an in- 
vention, may throw thousands of men out of work and 
their means of living. And when the inventor is in every 
line of business (as is the case) the displaced workers can- 
not get into some other trade. For instance, we will 
take the shoemaking machine. Previous to its inven- 
tion hundreds of thousands of men made shoes with sim- 
ple tools, the hammer, last and the needle. The shoe- 
making machine is introduced. It docs just about one 
hundred times as much with the same amount of labor, 

56 


The handworker cannot possibly compete against the 
machine. He cannot buy the machine; it is too costly 
(and, if by any possibility every worker could buy a 
machine, then there would be too much production of 
shoes). He seeks work in some other trade; but which- 
ever way he turns he finds men being displaced by ma- 
chinery. 

The inventor simply asks an extra proportion, says 
Mr. Spencer, but what is there to compensate the dis- 
placed worker for his loss of his means of living, of the 
trade that he spent years in learning? 

Under socialism every additional machine would 
tend to reduce the iiardships of work and reduce the 
hours of labor. The workers would be benefited, their 
wages would not be reduced. But under the present sys- 
tem the introduction of a labor-saving machine means 
the displacement of a number of men, without reducing 
the hours of labor of those men who are retained, al- 
though it generally means a reduction of wages for 
them, because the machines increase the number of un- 
employed. These unemployed wish to exist, and they 
offer to work for lower wages, their offer is accepted. 
Thus, wages and the standard of living sink lower and 
lower. 

Under socialism, inventors would doubtless be well 
rewarded for their thought and energy, but they would 
not be rewarded with great wealth to enable them and 
their children’s children to live forever upon the labor 
of other men. 

Under this system generation after generation of 
certain families enjoy the interest on the wealth which 
their predecessors acquired. These drones and parasites 


57 


have the power of making other persons slave, and 
drudge, and cringe. The power is not in their person, 
for many of them are inferior, both in intellect and 
physique. The power is in their purse — the power of 
wealth. This is the class of persons who preach to us 
about the intemperance, and the lack of thrift of the 
working class; these drones who, never in the whole 
course of their useless lives, did a stroke of useful work, 
are the very persons who tell us that competition is the 
only powerful incentive to work. 

Can it be called an inducement to work, when a 
worker has to slave from morn till night for a beggarly 
pittance? When he sees a tramp gets as much to eat, and 
much more fresh air and freedom than he does? When 
men get such poor reward for their labor, the in- 
ducement is rather in the direction of quitting work. A 
peculiarity of the present system is that labor is reward- 
ed in inverse ratio to its hardships. Thus, the miner and 
the sailor, who not only work hard, but also risk life and 
limb, receive about the lowest of wages. The bookkeeper 
or clerk gets more than the mechanic. The manager and 
superintendent, who do the least work, get the biggest 
salaries, and the capitalists, the drones, who do no work 
at all (in many cases not even that of supervision) receive 
all the wealth, pleasure and luxury that the world affords. 
The only efforts these drones make is for the purpose of 
exercise or recreation, and their only thoughts are for 
clothes and luxuries, and new pleasures. They pass their 
butterfly lives in one continual round of amusement, one 
pleasure follows another, and even death comes to them 
over carpeted floors, and surrounded with every deli- 
cacy and luxury. 


58 


What inducement is there for the wage slave to work 
hard under the present system, when the harder he works, 
the more his fellows have to work to keep up, and the 
sooner they get through the work, the sooner they are 
out of a “job,"’ and consequently out of the means of 
buying the necessaries of life? There is really an induce- 
ment to do bad work under this system, and, if possible, 
to do damage in order to get another job. The man who 
is called in to fix up a leak in the gas pipe, is tempted to 
seize the opportunity to disorganize the water supply, or 
damage the drain pipe, with a view to making more 
work. If a man’s window is broken, he is reminded that 
though it is bad for him, it is good for the glazier. A big 
fire, destroying many houses, is hailed with delight by 
many workers, as it means the providing of work for 
some of them. 

On page 407, “Social Statics,” we find another spec- 
imen of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy: “Moreover, this 
doctrine that it is the duty of the State to protect the 
health of its subjects, cannot be established, for the same 
reason that its kindred doctrine cannot, namely, the im- 
possibility of saying how far the alleged duty shall be 
carried out. Health depends upon the fulfillment of num- 
erous conditions, can be ‘protected’ only by enacting that 
fulfillment. If, therefore, it is the duty of the State to pro- 
tect the health of its subjects, it is its duty to see that all 
the conditions of health are fulfilled by them. If so, the 
legislature must enact a national dietry, prescribe so 
many meals a day for each individual, fix the quantities 
and qualities of food, both for men and women, state the 
proportion of fluid, when to be taken, and of what kind, 
specify the amount of exercise and define its character, 


59 


describe the clothing: to be employed, deterndne the 
hours of sleep, allowing for the difference of age and sex, 
and so on, with all other particulars ne cessary to com- 
plete a perfect synopsis for the daily guidance of the na- 
tion; and, to enforce these regulations, it must employ 
a sufficiency of duly qualified officials empowered to 
direct every one’s domestic arrangements.” 

Now, surely, this looks more like the trickery of the 
professional politician than the logic of a philosopher. 
It reminds us of the cunning debater who, when he finds 
his opponent’s arguments are too strong for him, im- 
mediately tries to confuse the issues by misleading state- 
ments, or by resorting to ridicule. The idea that the 
State (under socialism) should fix the precise amount of 
food, drink, exercise, sleep, etc., that the people should 
have, is so ridiculous that it is not worth notice, except to 
show to what excess some persons will carry their ‘"ar- 
guments.” It also shows how very weak are the argu- 
ments in defense of the present capitalist system, when 
the greatest philosopher of the world, the great cham- 
pion of the opponents to socialism, Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
can give us nothing stronger than dogmatic assertion 
and ridicule. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer does not believe in police, sol- 
diers, or in State management of schools, waterworks, 
lighting, drainage, etc., and yet he does believe in the 
public ownership of land. 

In “Social Statics,” he says: “Briefly reviewing the 
argument, we see that the right of each man to the use 
of the earth, limited only by the like rights of his fellow- 
men, is immediately deducible from the law of equal free- 
dom. On examination, all existing titles to private prop- 


6o 


erty turn out to be invalid, those founded on reclama- 
tion, inclusive/' 

In a letter to the “London Times,” in 1889, Mr. 
Herbert Spencer states “that while still maintaining the 
thesis that individual land ownership is absolutely wrong, 
he deprecates the confiscation of the property of innocent 
owners, and regards it as impossible for any state gov- 
ernment to manage land.” 

In short, Mr. Spencer thinks it best to support that 
which he says is absolutely wrong, and to perpetuate 
the evils resulting from it. A man with good, warm 
clothes does not feel the cold, and a man who is well off 
can survey the sufferings of the poor calmly, and say 
they cannot be prevented. His opinion on this subject 
is precisely of that sort that one naturally expects from a 
well-to-do man, who lives in a fine house, with nice fur- 
niture and willing servants, has horses and carriages, and 
enjoys all the little luxuries and comforts of life, and has 
no need to worry about his future. One can easily pic- 
ture him, sitting in a cosy arm chair, in a cosy room, 
calmly writing “that no power on earth, no reforms or 
schemes that ever were, or ever will be dbvised, can di- 
minish the sufferings that exist, one jot.” 

What progress would the world have made if all 
men had sat down and said in relation' to every pro- 
gressive measure: “It can never be done!” 



61 


SOCIALISM BOUND TO COME. 


“It will become a matter of wonder that there 
should ever have existed those who thought it admir- 
- able to enjoy, without working, at the expense of others 
who worked without enjoying.” — H. Spencer in “Study 
of Sociology.” 

It is generally admitted by thoughtful persons that 
the present industrial system cannot last many years 
longer. 

The evolution, which has been progressing for ages, 
is now approaching with ever increasing rapidity to its 
culminating point. At first, the process was slow, al- 
most imperceptible; but, like a snowslide from a moun- 
tain top, the further it progressed, the more impetus and 
force it gathered, and the latter part of its journey is cov- 
ered at its greatest speed. 

It is interesting to note the progress of evolution in 
industry. In the shoe trade, one man used to make the 
complete shoe; then one man confined himself to mak- 
ing the uppers, another man did the soleing. The intro- 
duction of machinery still more subdivided the work, un- 
til at the present time about sixty hands are required to 
make a pair of shoes in a modern shoe factory; but be- 
tween them they could turn out about ten thousand pairs 
of shoes, instead of about one hundred and eighty, as 
in the old-style way. 

The same process is at work in every manufacturing 
62 


industry. The mechanic who formerly made an article 
complete from beginning to finish, now only makes a 
part of it. He, himself, is but a part of the complicated 
system of production, just as the wheel Is a part of the 
machine. 

The machine is also evolving. The best machinery of 
to-day will be considered antiquated a few years hence. 
The great cost of these machines, and the great expense 
of running them, together with the necessity of handling 
large quantities of raw material, make it impossible for 
any persons, but those with very large capital, to compete 
successfully for the market. Thus, the small producer is 
crowded out, and as the competition becomes fiercer, 
even the large firms collapse, one after the other, until 
a few very big firms are left. These, having a mutual fear 
of each other, conclude that it is better for them to com- 
bine than to competq with each other. They then form 
what is called a stock company, but the stock company 
of one place competes with the stock company of another 
place. The same process of weeding out, or uniting of 
capital is gone through again, only on a larger scale, until 
finally is developed the gigantic trust, with its millions 
and millions of capital, absolutely controlling one or 
more of the industries of the entire country. 

There are several hundred trusts and combines in 
'the United States, and they are becoming fewer, but 
more powerful, every year. When a trust does collapse 
it is simply killed or swallowed by a still larger one. Of 
course the object of the combine is to absolutely stamp 
out all competition. The great coal combine absolutely 
controls the price of coal. in the Eastern States, and just 
before winter sets in, up goes the price, and the people 

63 


have to pay it, there being no other available source of 
supply. 

The trusts, when they buy out a competitor, do not 
always take him into partnership, or make use of his 
works. The steel combine, for instance, paid the pro- 
prietors of the Vulcan Mills, of St. Louis, $400,000 a year 
just to close their mills, simply on condition that they 
discontinued producing steel. It is needless to say that 
the workers in the mills got no compensation. Of course, 
they were just thrown out on the streets to enjoy their 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and, incidentally, the 
pursuit of another “job.” 

Some of these trusts are entirely unscrupulous in 
their methods. They don’t hesitate to bribe and corrupt 
public and other officials, or, when occasion serves, to 
use violence. Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, in “Wealth versus 
Commonwealth,” gives full particulars of two attempts 
of the hirelings of the whiskey trust to blow up and de- 
stroy the Chicago Distillery. The proprietors of the dis- 
tillery refused to either join the trust, or to sell their 
business to it. The trust then deliberately planned to 
destroy their competitor by destroying his distillery with 
explosives. The attempts, fortunately, failed; but, if they 
had succeeded, many lives would have been destroyed, 
as one hundred and fifty persons worked on the premises, 
and what with the explosion and the burning spirit, etc., 
they would have had small chance to escape. 

It can be clearly seen that trusts and monopolies 
directly prepare the way for governmental assumption of 
their powers and functions. The wider and stronger the 
monopoly, the stronger becomes the argument for the 
assumption of that business by the go’vernment. The 

64 


government is the only agency which should be trusted 
with a complete monopoly. 

The corporations and trusts not only aggregate and 
absorb all the small concerns, but they perfect the 
methods of production and distribution, and train large 
masses of workers in such a way that the government 
could assume control without waste of time. The co- 
operative commonwealth requires, for its introduction, 
the concentration of scattered economic forces. Trusts 
and monopolies are rapidly affecting this concentration; 
they are also concentrating the wealth of the country 
into the hands of the few. About forty million people in 
the United States are described as without property. 

The practicability of socialism is demonstrated by 
the workings of stock companies. The shareholders take 
no part in the work, not even to direct it; they simply 
pay managers and others to do the workTor them. The 
capitalist shareholders may number thousands, and 
change their stock daily, and they may live in foreign 
countries, but this makes no difference to the work, 
which goes on just the same. This proves how readily we 
could dispense with capitalists. 

Production and distribution on a large scale always 
economizes time, labor and material. The Standard Oil 
trust is an example. It has dispensed with the services of 
eight thousand seven hundred teams of horses, wagons, 
etc., and eleven thousand seven hundred men, who wTre 
formerly employed in handling oil, and yet there is more 
oil used than ever. Many of these men are probably 
tramping the country in search of work, or are mending 
roads in a chain gang for being vagrants. 

Herbert Spencer, being a student of evolution, and, 

65 


doubtless seeing the tendency of industrial evolution, de- 
scribes socialism as '‘the coming slavery,'' because the 
men who are now of the capitalist class would have to do 
their share of work; that is, they would not have slaves 
to work for them, as now, which, of course, is a terrible 
outlook for a luxurious drone to contemplate. But to 
the w'orking class socialism is the coming liberty and 
fraternity. Slaver}^ for them is here now, they have suf- 
fered under it for generations. The great majority of the 
people are wage slaves, and it is difficult to imagine any- 
thing more slavish, and degrading than the present sys- 
tem, which compels a worker to be cringing and servile 
to get a job, and k toady and a hypocrite in order to re- 
tain it. The working class are treated as inferiors, their 
food and shelter depends ou the whim of their employer. 
Jf the worker dares to show any manliness or independ- 
ence, he soon loses his position. "Nice sovereigns,” said 
Rousseau, "whose only function is to obey.” 

The working class, siffiering daily, as it does, hard- 
ship and degradation, under the present system, cannot 
much longer be restrained by Capitalist "pleas for liberty,” 
nor can its advance toward socialism be checked by such 
harmless scarecrows as the "coming slavery.” "Come,” 
say the wage slaves to the capitalist masters, "if socialism 
is slavery, we shall, at least, have the satisfaction of mak- 
ing YOU share it witli us.” It is impossible for an edu- 
cated people, with leisure time to discuss public affairs, 
to be slaves. 

The socialist cares not for the liberty to change one 
master for another, with the same identical slavish con- 
ditions. He cares not for the liberty to refuse work for 
slavish wages, and starve quickly, or to accept the work 


66 


and starve slowly. He would be glad to see such liberty 
forever abolished. 

The liberty the socialist values is the liberty for 
individuality to assert itself, the leisure time from work 
and care which is essential to individuality, and which, 
with comfortable circumstances, and good surroundings, 
make up the sine qua non of all real liberty. 

A few years ago the sub-editor of a newspaper in 
California wrote a book entitled the “Errors of Social- 
ism.’’ He and his mother recently committed suicide, 
leaving a note stating that they had decided to commit 
suicide, as they had neither money nor friends, nor any 
prospect of getting work, having tried for months to get 
some, and they had had no food for several days. 

Gould any man make a more complete confession 
that the present system is wrong than to commit suicide 
in order to escape from it? 

The present system is organized injustice and intel- 
lectual barbarism, but it is rapidly nearing its end. The 
socialist commonwealth is coming sooner than many 
expect. Legalized robbers and their myrmidons will 
contest e'tery inch of its progress, but it will come as 
sure as the dawn. 








67 


PALLIATIVES. 


As the competitive industrial system progresses tow- 
ards its only natural outcome, that of an industrial des- 
potism, ruled by a few billionaires, the evils that are 
inherent in the system become more glaringly apparent, 
just as the stamp of vice becomes more discernable in the 
faces of vicious people as they grow older. The germ of 
consumption may be lurking unsuspected in our system 
for years, and not until a severe cold or other influence 
has enabled it to secure a rasping hold upon us, do we 
realize the danger that was present, but invisible. 

The evils of the competitive system did not become 
easily discernable until the introduction of machinery, 
with its displacement of labor, led to the monopoly of 
entire industries by a few men. Millions of people now 
agree that there is something wrong, but as to what that 
something is, they hold very diverse views. Plaving been 
brought up under a competitive system, it does not nat- 
urally occur to them that there could be any other sys- 
tem of industry, srtid, as the great majority of people study 
these subjects very superficially, the general tendency is 
to deal with effects, instead of causes, and to try to miti- 
gate evils, instead of trying to abolish the cause of the 
evils. In this respect they resemble those* persons who 
allow pressure to remain on their corns, and yet expect 
to cure them by means of salves, etc. Thousands and 
thousands of persons are striving to inaugurate certain 

68 


measures that they fondly believe will solve the indus- 
trial problem; but a close investigation into these pro- 
posed measures proves them to be mere palliative 
schemes, mere attempts to patch up the walls of a struc- 
ture that is bad at its foundation. Of this class are such 
schemes as the single tax, bimetallism, etc. 

Many persons are earnest advocates of the single tax 
proposition. They maintain that the holding of unused 
land, for speculative purposes by individuals, is the 
cause of the trouble, and that if a tax (called the single 
tax) were placed on all land values, it would compel the 
owner to either part with that land, or else make use of it 
himself, as no one would pay tax on land that gave no 
return. Single taxers claim that their scheme would sim- 
plify the collection of public revenue, that, by gradually 
increasing the tax, it might lead, in the course of about 
6o years, to the nationalization of the land; that if the 
worker could not secure work in town, he could then go 
on the land and employ himself. 

Now, in ordei^ to employ himself, the worker must 
be able to produce something for which there is a de- 
mand. There is a surplus of farm products in the markets 
right now. What would the result be if more men, thou- 
sands of them, were raising still more farm produce? In 
order to make a living, the producer must be able to 
bring his produce to market and sell at the market price ; 
that is, the lowest price. Now, who can best afford to 
sell produce cheaply, the man with a small piece of land, 
with old-fashioned tools, etc., or the man with the large 
farm, the steam plow, and all the best methods and ap- 
pliances? 

It is obvious that the poor farmer ^onn^t 'ompete 

69 


with the rich one. Thousands of farmers in the United 
States own their farms, they pay no rent, and their taxes 
do not amount to what the single tax would be, and yet 
these farmers are losing their farms by the thousand. 
Why? Simply because there is such an enormous pro- 
duction of produce, and prices are so low that only farm- 
ers with large investments can make the business pay. 
Three per cent profit on $i,ooo is not enough to live oiu 
but 3 per cent on $100,000 is a good income. As the 
competitive system would still continue under the single 
tax, and as the tax would be just as favorable to the big 
capitalist as to the small one, it is evident that such a 
change would not help small farmers much. 

Then, again, even if it were possible for poor farm- 
ers to compete with rich ones, it is obvious that the ca- 
pacity of the farming industry to furnish work for the 
unemployed, is limited by the demand for farm produce. 

In the manufacturing industries some new machine 
is introdyced nearly, every day, and more workers are 
displaced. Cheap land would not prevent the exploitation 
of the worker by the capitalist; it would be just as favor- 
able to the capitalist as to the worker; it would leave the 
inequality between them precisely as it is now. Processes 
of labor will be still more improved, machine power still 
further increased and perfected, and wealth will still tend 
into still fewer hands. Wage workers can never better 
their condition so long as such a system lasts; intelligent 
workers sliould not waste their time and energies on 
mere palliative measures. 

Bimetallism is another scheme that is interesting 
many. It is argued by bimetallists that the cause of poor 
business, etc., is the scarcity of money, that if more: 


70 


money were in circulation, there would be a greater de- 
mand for goods, etc., and that this demand would furnish 
employment and bring good times. They, therefore, pro- 
pose the free and unlimited coinage of silver, to be main- 
tained at a parity with gold at a ratio of lO to i. 

Now, without discussing whether the parity could 
be maintained, let us inquire to what extent free coin- 
age would furnish work, as, of course, that is the only 
way in which it could help the working class. (Let us 
hope that no one is so ignorant as to imagine free coin- 
age means free distribution of silver money to the 
people.) 

Now, it has been calculated that if all the silver mines 
were set going, not above 100,000 more men could get 
employment than are now employed. One hundred 
thousand is. not one-twentieth part of the number of un- 
employed in the United States. Thus, without discussing 
whether free coinage- would lower wages through depre- 
ciation of purchasing value, it is evident that it is not 
worth the while of wage workers to bother themselves 
with a scheme that would still leave millions of unem- 
ployed in the labor market. The free coinage agitation 
has reached the height it has, because the millionaire 
silver mine owners have spent thousands in trying to be- 
guile the people into a scheme that would enable own- 
ers of silver mines to make still larger fortunes. The sil- 
ver miner has no more right to have his commoditv 
coined directly into currency than has the coal or iron 
miner, or the lumberman. 

The free coinage scheme is largely supported by 
farmers with mortgaged farms. These farmers think that 
free coinage will enable them to pay their debts in cheap 


71 


money; in short, that it will enable them to repudiate 
about half their debt, but they fail to see that they will 
be paid for their farm produce in cheap dolla^rs, and that, 
therefore, they will be no nearer paying off their mort- 
gages than they are now; but, like drowning men, they 
cling to straws. 

The reason why merchants, etc., are unable to sell 
their goods, is the simple fact that the workers, receiving 
only about one-fifth of the value of their product, are, 
of course, unable to buy the other four-fifths. This four- 
fifths, unless sold abroad, will accumulate and become a 
glut in the markets. In order to get money, whether 
under the gold standard, or bimetallism, the workers 
must work and produce more goods, and the production 
being greater than the consumption, it is evident that 
the free coinage of silver could not prevent a surplus of 
commodities in the markets. 

Wage workers, there is nothing of value to you in 
either the free coinage or single tax schemes. 
Labor is a commodity. It is bought and sold in the mar- 
ket like potatoes. It does not effect potatoes whether 
they are paid for in silver or gold, nor does it matter 
much to the laborer, because, under any circumstances, 
he will have to accept such wages as he can get, the large 
body of unemployed rendering him unable to get more. 

The best that even the advocates of these schemes 
claim for them, is that they will give a little more work. 
Yes, that is all, more work, not better conditions, but 
more work. Neither of these schemes would prevent the 
.exploitation of labor, nor its displacement by machinery, 
but would merely prolong the system of wage-slavery. 
Niagara falls are being hitched up, and when their power 


72 


IS more fully used, over million more workers will be 
displaced. It will require lots of palliatives to offset this. 

Public ownership of railways, etc., is much discussed 
now-a-days, but whether such public ownership would 
be of any benefit to the working class, depends entirelv 
upon how they are managed. The mere ownership of a 
few monopolies by national or municipal governments 
would not better the condition of the wage worker, be- 
cause, wages being regulated by the cost of living, if the 
cost of living is reduced, then the unemployecf will re- 
duce the average wages, by offering to work cheaper. 

The city of Glasgow owns and operates the street 
cars, electric lights, gas and water works, wash houses, 
and swimming baths, and public markets, yet the condi- 
tion, and the average wages of the workers in Glasgow 
are as low, if not lower, than in any x\merican city. 

The people of Glasgow did not municipalize these 
monopolies because they were socialists, but simply be- 
cause they were shrewd business men^ and the landlords 
approve these measures because, gas, water, etc., being 
cheaper, they can increase the rent a little more. 

If socialists had taken over these concerns, the work- 
ers employed in them would have their hours of labor 
much reduced, and their wages more equitable. They 
would elect their own foreman, superintendent, etc. (just 
as they elect the chairman, secretary, delegate, etc., of 
their unions), and these foremen, etc., would not receive 
a much larger salary than the other workers. 

Real socialists do not want to see a system of public 
ownership established, which will enable superintend- 
ents, managers, etc., to dra^v ^wge salaries, to place their 
friends in the best positions, and to control the votes 


73 


the workers. That is the sort of public ownership that 
landlords and middle-class people want, the sort that the 
populist or so-called people’s party advocates. The work- 
ers should not support any middle-class party on the step 
at a time principle. No compromise whatever should be 
made with believers in wage slavery; such cannot better 
the condition of the wage-slaves, for, if they abolished 
the poverty and dependence of the workers, where would 
they- get slaves to produce wealth and luxuries for them? 
The capitalist wants to buy labor as cheap as he can. 
The laborer 'wants to get as much as he can. Their inter- 
ests are opposed. The capitalist wants to keep the laborer 
down, the laborer is struggling to get up. There is a 
struggle between the two classes (the middle class is dis- 
appearing, and will soon cease to exist). Workers should 
not vote for the same parties as their masters. The Re- 
publicans, Democrats and Populists are all supporters of 
capitalism and wage slavery. There is but one labor 
party, and that is the Socialist Labor party, and under its 
banner all workers should be found uncompromising and 
unfaltering in their demand for the obolition oi wage- 
slavery. 

The workers should not only ignore all populist mid- 
dle-class schemes, they should also be ever watchful of 
men calling themselves anarchists. Anarchists claim 
that all slavery, despotism and officialism are the result 
of government. That the only way of abolishing these 
evils is by abolishing all system of government, that when 
government is done away with, people can co-operate, if 
they vdsh to do so. The anarchist ^ys that this state is 
to be brought about, not by the ballot, but by education. 

. A Chicago newspaper editorial, after noting that 


74 


the socialist movement is growing rapidly in America^ 
said: ‘‘The best way to fight socialists is with anarchists. 
The anarchist, by his extreme views and violent speech, 
soon secures a following amongst the impatient, and thus 
he can split the socialist organizations into warring fac- 
tions.” 

The Socialist Labor party vote is doubling at every 
election. Would it not be nice for the capitalists if the 
anarchists could only persuade socialists not to use their 
best and only effective weapon, the ballot, and thus 
leave the capitalist to make laws to suit themselves, and 
to control the powers of coercion, the police and the mili- 
tary ? 

Of what avail would education be unless the people 
were united in a strong organization to carry out their 
object. The capitalists, entrenched behind their laws, 
and police and military, would be perfectly secure 
against unorganized discontents. 

And even if anarchy could be brought about ; what 
then? Some would co-operate, others would compete. 
Some would be rich, others poor. The poor would be the 
slaves of the rich, as now. 

The anarchist is a mere confusionist (when not 
worse) and should be ignored as such. 

Only under an organized co-operative system of in- 
dustry can the best results be attained. The control of 
the industries can only be acquired by political methods. 

The contention of anarchists, and others, that 
socialist representatives will be bribed, is a weak one, 
for, while it is possible that one or two might accept 
bribery, they could soon be recalled, and, as the workers 
are in the majority, their representatives should be in 

75 


the majority; and, if the majority of congressmen, legis- 
lators, etc., were socialists, it would cost such vast sums 
to bribe them (if they should accept bribery), that it 
would not pay the capitalists to do it. 


THE OBVIOUS EFFECTS OF SOCIALISM, 


Socialists maintain that the present industrial system 
is not only cruel and despotic, but it is also the cause 
of a stupendous waste of energy, time and material, and 
the time will come when all people will unhesitatingly 
admit the fact. It required years of bloody warfare and 
a vast expenditure of treasure to force the Southerners 
to abandon chattel slavery, and yet, most Southerners 
will now admit that the wage system is better and cheaper 
to the employer than the chattel system, and it is quite 
p.ossible that many of the opponents of socialism will live 
to see the co-operative commonwealth proved to be su- 
perior in every respect, and from -all points of view, to 
the present system, and yet, doubtless many of them will 
fight socialism until the very day of its realization. It may 
be interesting to state that Oxford University was one 
of the last places in which the Newtonian philosophy was 
acknowledged, and it is one of the first universities to 
start a socialist club. 

Very few people fully realize what an enormous 
amount of unnecessary work and trouble the present in- 
dustrial system involves. There are about 400,000 drum- 
mers, or agents, in this country, and their railway fares, 
hotel bills, salaries and total expenses amount to an 
enormous sum every year. There are thousands of milk- 
men, butchers, peddlers, etc., crossing each other’s routes, 
instead of having one distributor to each district, as in 


77 


the case of the mail carriers. Thousands of middlemen, 
commission agents, etc., who rob both the producer and 
the consumer, and thousands of stores, where a few very 
large ones would suffice. 

Several hundred thousand workers are employed, in 
advertising work, as sign painters, stencil cutters, show 
card writers, brass and embossed sign makers, paper 
makers, sign-board makers, printers and dodger and 
bill posters, etc., every little store having its signs, show 
and price cards and advertisements. It is said that $8,~ 
000,000 a day is spent on advertising. 

Now, all this represents so much waste of labor. 
People would get their food, clothes, etc., just the same 
if there were not a drummer or advertisement in the 
country, and, besides being unnecessary, they are very 
heavy burdens upon the people. All who are not pro- 
ducers live upon the labor of- the producer. If all the 
non-producers took their part in useful work, they would 
add to the productive power of the nation without in the 
least diminishing the per capita reward of labor. The 
more men employed the shorter would be the time neces- 
sary to work. 

Under socialism (the co-operative commonwealth) 
all industry would be run for public convenience, and not 
as now, for private profit. The people, the government, 
Avonlcl be the only employer, the only producer, the only 
seller. 

According to statistics, the wealth produced per day 
in the United States averages about $io per worker. Out 
of this the capitalist class take (through rent, interest, 
and profit) about $9, leaving only $i per day for each 
worker. Of course, many workers get several dollars per 

. 78 


day, but, including low-paid labor, and those who only 
get a few months’ work in the year, and deducting rent 
from this, the average is about $i per worker, and this 
includes bookkeepers, clerks, and well-paid labor. 

Under socialism, as there would be no profit-taking 
private employer, it is obvious that the worker would 
get approximately the full value of the product of his 
labor. There would be no necessity for people to beg 
private employers to give them work, as the State would 
have to furnish employment, and the more employed, 
the better for all. 

It is stated that with the best machinery one man 
can turn out enough cotton cloth for 250 people, or 
“enough woolens for 300 people, or enough shoes for 1,000 
people, and, with latest machinery, enough bread for 500 • 
people. When one reflects upon this, it is impossible to 
doubt the assertion frequently made, that if industry 
were properly organized, one or two hours" work per day 
could be made sufficient to satisfy all our needs. 

There are many persons who believe that the pic- 
ture of pleasure and comfort under socialism drawn by 
Edward Bellamy, in ‘‘Looking Backward,” is much ex- 
aggerated, but a little reflection ought to convince any- 
one that such pleasant conditions as he describes are but 
the natural results that would be brought about by a 
co-operative commonwealth. Effects are the results of 
causes. Social conditions, good or bad, are the results 
of the social and industrial systems that produce them, 
and the advantages claimed for socialism are the plain 
and obvious deduction from facts. If people have 
good food, sanitary homes and surroundings, freedom 
from worry and fear of poverty, plenty of leisure time for 


79 


pleasure and study, and can meet in social intercourse 
on conditions of material equality, they have at least got- 
many of the conditions necessary to happiness. 

To bring these conditions about is the aim of social- 
ists. This is the wicked scheme for which socialists are 
persecuted and thrown into prison for advocating. This 
is the cause for which many noble men have sacrificed 
their prospects in life, their wealth, their time, their 
lives. 


•••• 

•••• 


Address olders foi* this book to T. BKKSFORD, Labor 
Association, 915 Market Street, San Francisco, Cal. 

8o 



•*, f"-- -1 -‘iW- ' ij*; . ; • -Vi>W 

, ' *• .r • f . . • - *.'N .•' r . •. » 7 ■ • ’ .* ' 

>' ■ * • ' • • • . '- i 

-l ^ • At- . V ^ -J 

, *• • * • , , ' . '^ i.- 



' » . ^■ ■ T'- >* ' y* • - - 

• } ‘V'l '• 


N ' *> 'y 

. tI ■ ■'- {•!' .*•' 

^ifei^vU.'* - 




I ^ 



• - ^ . • 




' ^ - * * - - f 

■* -'"f > ' «♦* 

. / j . _^ 


k i 


> 


tl 


f ' >V* •' >•' •• «* 4 ^ ' . • . 

. : ■rv'}';:. ■• • . w .. ..V . 

^ wv 1^4 l i* <-i 


f. / »» 


< • 




I. 




:i. 


« « 


A 

It j 

i 'H ■ 

I •■,F 






•f ^ 


«• r 




A 






iirfV' 


;- 


-'V 


■n c 


•w> 

‘^■rX " ■ ' 

'V " r.r 


.u'. ' 
> 



• .LT ., ’• - 1 ^ 



' V. 


^vV 


*’. . ' ■ . V*- y‘> ' V * i 


i". -V.i 


M .' tfc.* 

t' 'T-.\ 




>v • *' 

I n ' 




. >14 & v . . • ' :• 

'•vViJ >» ► ■' 7 

•• •? ‘ •,■-*». t,,i 


$ 


IV 

•-"I 


r / 

I I 


- . wV' 

•- • ’ ». • .* 




^ L-# 






<f V 1 






mm 


, - / :'’J' •-• . \ ‘ ,-, . ■ V,; ■ • ■ ■- ■ ;■ • ■ . ; V- ;■■ : , < 

Vrv^^;' ry- I , ■ ' '"S' 




' *> . 



-r- ! 


<4 

•ki 


1 •( 

v''» 

4 


% 

i 


* 


V:.. 


s 




> ^ 


u ■? ' 
1, 


- ✓ 


» j 


> 

•>« 


. j. 


• - -Vf' 

• “ 4 ^ •.- 


. ■ . ,• ■ w.-.- . ■ ■’•’^^■' ■■ - y\ ■" -h 

-»■•/• ’ '':?v;^-. - ‘A 

■ ■ . ', "■ ■' w 

< J.-V , ■ ' 


t 


» » 
•^•'' ?.v 


'. T' - •, r . .J ■ ■{ ■ 

I »■•% , . J ' ■ 


** . 


- t 



s •■ < 


i 

».< • 


• ♦ 


■ * - :-^ 


s.' 


. V 4 


2^ 

W.y 


« ' 
0 

‘ ^ 




- \ 

• , • * I . • 




• .. 


• ‘ v '. 


* ' ' w‘*^ • ’•' -c^*?Gr_ !*■ ■^••* **' 

V ■•' • - ’■ 4 f*i' 

4 









LC FT. MEADE A 

1 II li lllP 

lli 

0 019 056 11 

cn: 


THE PEOPLE 

National Official Organ 
of the 

Socialist Labor Party 

PUBLISHED AT 

184 WILLIAM ST„ New York, N, Y, 

Subscription for Three Months 30c 

for One Year $1.00 


The New Charter 


OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE 

S. L. P. 

FOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Subscription Price One Dollar per Year 

Address - - 35 TURK STREET 


SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 



